IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Poll: 55 Percent Concerned About Russia's Interference in Election

Over half of Americans are concerned by revelations of Russian interference in the election, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
IMAGE: Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama endured a frosty greeting at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, in September.Alexei Druzhinin / AP

More than half of Americans say they are significantly bothered by the news that hackers working in connection with a foreign government were involved in trying to influence November’s presidential election, according to results from a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Forty-three percent of respondents say they are bothered a “great deal” about Russian interference, while an additional 12 percent were bothered “quite a bit.”

By contrast, 23 percent of Americans say they aren’t bothered at all by the news, while 8 percent said “very little” and another 10 percent said “just some.”

NBC News

But there’s a notable partisan divide on this question: A combined 86 percent of Democrats are bothered a great deal/quite a bit by the interference, versus just 29 percent of Republican respondents who say this.

Forty-nine percent of independents say they are bothered either a great deal or quite a bit.

U.S. intelligence officials now believe with "a high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials have told NBC News.

Despite more than half of Americans being concerned about Russia’s interference, just 37 percent believe the actions helped President-elect Donald Trump win the presidential contest, while 57 percent say it didn’t make a difference.

The NBC/WSJ poll also finds 31 percent of Americans believing that Trump’s relationship with Russia’s Putin is too friendly and not appropriate, versus 24 percent who don’t believe it’s too friendly. Forty-four percent have no opinion.

NBC News

Once again, there’s a striking partisan divide: 61 percent of Democrats say Trump is too friendly with Putin, compared with just 8 percent of Republicans who believe that.

“There’s just an overwhelming partisan filter to the responses,” says Republican pollster Bill McInturff, whose firm co-conducted the NBC/WSJ poll with the Democrats from Hart Research Associates.

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Dec. 12-15 of 1,000 adults – including nearly half of them by cell phone – and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.