Poll: 50 Percent of Voters Say Franken Should Resign From Senate

Fifty percent of voters said Minnesota Sen. Al Franken should resign from the Senate, while only 22 percent said he should not do so, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday.

The survey was conducted after radio broadcaster Leeann Tweeden said that he groped her in 2006, but before a second woman alleged that Franken touched her inappropriately while he was a senator in 2010.

The poll also indicated that Democratic voters are more likely to find allegations of sexual misconduct against Democrats credible and support significant punishments than GOP voters are regarding such allegations against Republicans.

• While 49 percent of Democrats said Franken should resign, 56 percent of Republicans thought so, a partisan divide of seven percentage points.
• However, while 73 percent of Democrats said the Senate should expel Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore if he wins the special election, only 46 percent of Republicans thought so, a partisan divide of 27 percentage points, or nearly four times as big.

Morning Consult co-founder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp gave another such example from the poll.

"While 69 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of Democrats say the sexual assault allegations against former President Bill Clinton are credible, only 37 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats say the same about allegations made against Trump."

Other results from the survey show:

• Sixty-six percent of voters said the Senate Ethics Committee should probe Franken, while only 15 percent said the committee should not investigate it.
• Fifty-nine percent of voters said sexual harassment and misconduct is a big problem in Hollywood, and 43 percent said the same about the federal government and Washington.
• However, only 31 percent said sexual harassment is a big problem in the state government, 29 percent said that about the finance industry, 27 percent about the tech industry and 36 percent about the media.
•  Asked about their own workplace, 16 percent of voters said sexual harassment is a big problem. Among men, it was 21 percent, while only 12 percent of women thought so.

The poll was conducted November 16-19, surveying 2,586 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus two percentage points.

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