Axios Poll: Majority Doesn't Trust Gov't to Stop Midterm Meddling

A majority of Americans do not trust the Trump administration can "prevent foreign interference in the 2018 midterms," according to the latest Axios poll Sunday.

While the sentiment is markedly partisan — 86 percent Democrats, and 63 percent Independents, to just 17 percent Republicans — 55 percent of all adults in the poll do not have much or any trust the Trump administration and prevent foreign interference.

Other significant findings from the Axios poll conducted by Survey Monkey among 3,574 adults from Feb. 21-23 with a 2.5 percent margin of error:

• 66 percent say social media (Facebook and Twitter) and tech companies (like Google) have a "major responsibility" in stopping foreign interference.
• 63 percent say the federal government has a "major responsibility" in stopping foreign interference.
• Americans' trust those websites will prevent interference is split 48 percent to 48 percent.
• 80 percent blame those websites for not doing more to combat 2016 election meddling.
• A majority, 55 percent, blame the Obama administration for not doing more.

All told, Axios reported interpreting the poll results, Americans' trust in honest and un-interfered elections has been compromised.

"The bottom line: Americans are not in a good mood heading into the midterms — and that's a recipe for more than the usual distrust and fighting over the closest races," Axios wrote.

That sentiment echoed by former FBI agent Leo Taddeo last week, too.

"I think it's fairly clear the Russians have a cheap and effective way to sow discord and confusion and really undermined the basic principles of democracy," Taddeo told "The Cats Roundtable." "It really wouldn't matter what the issue was, as long as people were disagreeing.

". . . If Americans aren't so confident in their president or the Congress or their government in general, then it makes America weaker when it comes time to act on the foreign stage. . . . It's a brilliant use of a simple technique that's cheap relative to other intelligence operations [designed] to weaken us."

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