Blogs: January 6

Three years after rioters violently overran the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the counting of electoral college votes to ratify Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, the deep divisions and decay in institutional trust that fueled the riot remain starkly apparent in Texas public opinion.

In advance of Trump’s planned campaign kick-off in Waco, Texas, we have gathered some polling data to provide context for how Texans – most importantly Texas Republicans and independents – view the former president before his high profile visit. Overall, Trump appears to have retained the high regard of Texas Republicans, albeit amidst signs of some dampening enthusiasm. But large swathes of GOP voters remain not just positively inclined toward him; they also continue to believe the mythology surrounding his loss in 2020, and remain focused on the grievances that fed his takeover of the Republican Party in the 2016 election.

The House Select Committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 kicked off a series of televised public hearings Thursday night with a prime time event intended to reignite interest in the subject of their work and provide some teasers of what’s yet to come in future public hearings. Data in the Texas Politics Project polling archive provides some context for how the resumed discussion of January 6 and related matters are likely to land among different groups of Texas voters.