According to a new poll, fewer than a quarter of respondents say Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) should remain in the Senate in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, now from two different women.
The Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 50% of voters said Franken should resign, including 49% of Democrats, while only 22% said he should not. Another option would be for the Senate to expel him, an unusual move, but one that has been raised were Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the subject of numerous sexual harassment and assault allegations were to win his Senate race.
Only 25% said Franken should not be expelled, while 46 said he should be. Moore's expulsion got the nod from 57% of respondents, while only 18% said he should be allowed to serve.
The senator is familiar to media watchers as both the former SNL cast member, author of books taking aim at Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives. and as one of the strongest critics of media consolidation in the Senate.
More of the respondents (65%) found allegations of sexual impropriety against former President Bill Clinton that about Donald Trump (49%). That was because4 while there was bipartisan support for the Clinton allegations--69% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats, the Trump allegations responses were heavily partisan, with 64% of the Dems saying they were credible versus only 37% of Republicans.
Voters were split over whether public officials
In the sexual allegation credibility category--the poll was taken before the revelations in the past few days regarding Charlie Rose and Rep. John Conyers and Disney's Jon Lasseter, 59% believed the allegations against Harvey Weinstein were credible; 50% said the Kevin Spacey allegations were credible and 47% said the Bill O'Rielly allegations were credible.
The poll was conducted Nov. 16-19 among 2,586 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
The poll comes as Franken faced a second allegation of groping.
Lindsay Menz told ABC News that Franken put her hand on her behind while taking a photo together at the state fair. In a statement, Franken said he didn't remember the photo--he takes thousands of them, he said--but said he "felt badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected.”
