As voters consider their White House choice, is Jan. 6 a factor?

Voters were horrified when a pro-Trump mob ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Will voters in November 2024 care? (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

With 156 days left until polls close in the 2024 presidential race, I’m wondering whether the chaos that ensued after the last election will matter to voters in the fall.

Polls indicate that it should:

• A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll from January said most Americans (55%) believe the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol was an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten.
• A CBS News/YouGov survey from the same month found 78% disapprove of the actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol.
• ABC News/Ipsos in August found 52% of Americans think Donald Trump should have been charged with a crime for his connection to the riot.

But in national and battleground state polls, Trump has the edge over President Joe Biden.

So what gives here? Are there voters who think the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was deplorable but don’t think it’s an especially important issue compared to the economy or immigration? Or are there Americans horrified by the riot but uninterested in voting?

This is on my mind because I was in Madison Wednesday to watch U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., talk with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, in what was billed as a “fireside chat on defending American democracy.”

Anyone who followed the House committee hearings on Jan. 6 probably recognizes Raskin, who sat on the panel and is not shy about his feelings on the rioters and Trump’s involvement in the episode. He was also lead manager for Trump’s second impeachment, a role that won him warm applause from the crowd who gathered to watch him talk to Sherrill.

Sherrill, who is reportedly eyeing a run for governor next year, expressed fear that Congress has little control over the kind of behavior Trump exhibited after he lost the last election — e.g., using his powers as president to try to remain in office, voters be damned.

“I felt like a lot of it really rested on tradition and a belief in our system of government, and it felt like there were very few levers we could use to force that transfer peacefully or ensure that it went forward,” she said.

Wednesday’s conversation — which occurred before another will-this-matter moment, Trump’s conviction on 34 counts in his hush-money trial — naturally veered to the U.S. Supreme Court and Justice Sam Alito’s flag-flying proclivities. Alito, a Jersey boy, has been the center of controversy lately because he flew flags favored by Trump loyalists and Jan. 6 rioters outside his homes. Raskin said the flags call Alito’s objectivity into question.

“I basically take Chief Justice Roberts at his word. He says that a judge is just an umpire,” he said. “Well, would Major League Baseball allow an umpire to officiate at the World Series if he was flying the pennant, the flag of one of the teams in his yard? Or flying one of the flags of the other teams upside down? Or if his wife was protesting to the league that the last game’s score should be nullified and reversed?”

He added: “If a judge is going to be an umpire, then act like an umpire.”

Raskin’s plea that Supreme Court justices should have term limits and should come from different places around the nation earned a slight rebuke from Sherrill.

“New Jersey hasn’t really done very well with their Supreme Court justice, Alito, so we may need to be careful,” she said.

The crowd in Madison Wednesday ate up Sherrill’s and Raskin’s thoughts on Jan. 6, but back to my initial question: Do head-to-head polls between Trump and Biden indicate voters don’t think the Jan. 6 riot matters? Raskin told me he thinks the polls showing Biden behind will not reflect what happens on Election Day.

He noted that Democrats have outperformed polls in recent special elections, like the one for a Republican seat in Long Island that Democrat Rep. Tom Suozzi won by eight points in February.

“We’ve been winning elections all over the country,” Raskin told me. “Some of the poll figures reflect people who are concerned about different issues, including what’s going on in the Middle East, but when people go out and vote, they’re voting for the Democrats at this point, and we fully expect that to be what’s going to happen.”

I posed the same question to Craig Sicknick, whose brother Brian was a U.S. Capitol police officer and died in the hospital a day after defending the Capitol during the riot. Brian Sicknick has become somewhat of a hero to Trump critics who condemn what happened on Jan. 6 as an insurrection, and his family was in Madison Wednesday to watch Sherrill and Raskin speak.

“I feel personally that I wouldn’t be here today without his protection,” Sherrill said to applause from the crowd.

Craig Sicknick told me he fears “all the time” that voters have moved on from this issue. I asked him what his message for these voters is.

“If you want to have a country that you want to live in, you’d better pay attention,” Sicknik said.

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