Poll: America Evenly Divided Over Brian Williams

By Mark Joyella 

Should Brian Williams get another chance at NBC News? Yes. But also, maybe no. That’s according to a CNN/ORC poll, which found across every group, Americans are slightly more pro-Williams than anti-Williams, but you won’t find a landslide anywhere.

Pollsters asked, should Williams return as anchor of “NBC Nightly News”? 52-percent say yes, 40-percent say no, and eight percent weren’t sure. That was the result for men, women, whites, non-whites, young and old.

Williams did best with non-whites (60-percent said he should return to “Nightly”), while just 48-percent of whites said the same. Women (55-percent said yes) were more positive than men (49-percent).

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By age, the Bring Back Brian crowd was strongest among the youngest, 18-34s (53-percent said yes) and the oldest, 50+ (53-percent said yes). The weakest support for Williams was among 35-49s, where 49-percent said yes.

By small margins, those making less money were more in favor of bringing Williams back, as were those who did not go to college. Those who identified as “liberal” were most forgiving of Williams (60-percent said he should return), and those who said they were “conservative” were least forgiving, with 46-percent saying Williams should get a second chance.

It’s unclear what–if anything–all that data will mean for NBC, but we can tell you the overall margin of error was +/- 3 percentage points.

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