A majority of Americans believe the Obama administration “improperly surveilled” the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, a new poll released this week found.
The poll, conducted by Investor’s Business Daily and TIPP, stated, “The public doesn’t necessarily buy into the Democratic narrative that the Trump campaign ‘colluded’ with Russia to tamper with the 2016 presidential election.”
The IBD/TIPP poll found 72 percent of respondents were following the story either “very closely” or “somewhat closely.”
More interesting was that 55 percent of the respondents who are following the story “said it was ‘likely’ that the Obama administration ‘improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.'”
One of the people who also believes this to be the case is the president himself.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
The partisan breakdown of those who believe the Obama administration likely spied on the Trump campaign is what you’d expect among those registered as either Democrats or Republicans, with 87 percent of Republicans believing it likely and only 31 percent of Democrats agreeing. But fully 55 percent of independents agree with the clear majority of Republicans that the spying probably occurred.
The poll also found 54 percent thought the idea of the Obama administration spying on the Trump campaign was worthy of an special counsel to investigate the charge, something Democrats in Congress have steadfastly refused. Surprisingly, while 74 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of independents said a special counsel is warranted, 44 percent of Democrats also agreed with that assessment.