Voters Believe Al Franken’s Accusers – But Think He Should Have Stayed

Image by Getty Images
A poll from the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper found that a majority of Minnesotans believe that Al Franken did grope several women — but that he should not have resigned from office. Franken stepped down earlier this month.
Of the 800 people polled statewide, 60 percent said they believe Franken groped and harassed multiple women. But only 41 percent said he should have resigned — 48 percent think she should have remained in office. That included 68 percent of Democrats and a third of Republicans.
Franken had a 58% approval rating in Minnesota before the first allegation. That put him in the top ten for senators with the highest approval ratings.
Franken had initially planned to wait for the results from a Senate ethics investigation into his conduct. But after a seventh woman came forward with an allegation that Franken groped her, Senate Democratic leaders urged Franken to resign.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
