Poll: 50 Percent of Trump Supporters Believe QAnon Conspiracy Theories

50 percent of President Donald Trump’s supporters believe QAnon conspiracy theories, particularly that the president is fighting child sex trafficking rings led by Democrats, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

Although the survey found that 55 percent of Trump supporters said they had never heard of QAnon, that changed when respondents were asked about conspiracy theories without attributing them to QAnon directly.

According to Yahoo News:

Here, a staggering 50 percent of Trump supporters say they believe top Democrats are involved in elite child sex trafficking rings. Roughly the same number (52 percent) say they believe Trump is working to dismantle such rings. Another third of Trump supporters (33 percent) say they’re not sure whether these rings exist — which means that just 17 percent of Trump supporters reject the imaginary claims.

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Among all registered voters, a quarter (25 percent) believe top Democrats are involved in elite child sex trafficking rings; another quarter (24 percent) aren’t sure. The vast majority of Joe Biden’s supporters — 82 percent — correctly identify the notion as preposterous.

“It seems increasingly like we’re dealing with two different sets of facts in this country, sometimes more,” Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the nonpartisan Wilson Center, told the news outlet. “The fact is that QAnon is a movement, a conspiracy that has been cited by the FBI as potentially inciting terrorist and other violent extremist acts in this country. It shouldn’t be something that we’re this split [on] along partisan lines.”

President Donald Trump refused to denounce QAnon during a nationally televised town hall Thursday evening. 

“I know nothing about QAnon,” Trump told NBC News’ moderator Savannah Guthrie. 

That’s not true: The president generated controversy in August after he praised subscribers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying they “love our country.”

“I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. But I don’t know much about the movement,” he said at a press briefing. “These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and other cities and states. I’ve heard these are people that love our country and they just don’t like seeing it. I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me. And they also would like to see problems in these areas … go away.”

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.