Half of Trump supporters believe in QAnon conspiracy theory's baseless claims, poll finds

A new poll finds that half of President Donald Trump's supporters believe in QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly disproven and deemed by the FBI as an extremist threat, even if they do not know it by name.

The Yahoo! News poll conducted by YouGov surveyed 1,583 registered voters online after last week's town hall with President Trump, where he said he was unaware of the group despite retweeting its supporters on his Twitter account and previously saying its supporters "like me very much" and "love our country."

The core of QAnon is the false theory that Trump was elected as a "savior figure" to root out a secret Satanic child-sex trafficking ring run by Democratic politicians and celebrities.

When asked if they had ever heard of QAnon, 69% of Biden supporters and 48% of Trump supporters said they had.

Of those groups, 37% of Trump supporters who believe that the theory — or parts of it — are true, while 85% of Biden supporters believe the theory is a baseless conspiracy theory.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

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The level of support increases when questions were phrased based on the conspiracy theory's core beliefs. 

When posed as individual parts of the conspiracy — namely, that Democrats run an elite child sex-trafficking "cabal" and that President Trump is making efforts to dismantle it — about half of Trump supporters, whether they'd heard of QAnon or not, said they believe in both parts. 

Comparatively, more than 80% of Biden supporters did not believe either aspect of the conspiracy, regardless of their familiarity with QAnon itself.

In some ways, the response mirrors Trump's response to moderator Savannah Guthrie's line of questioning during the town hall.

“What I do hear about it is they are strongly against pedophilia, and I agree with that," he said during the town hall, after stating that he doesn't know about the conspiracy theory by name.The conspiracy theory originated on the controversial, anonymous message board 4chan and has since cemented its way into the political mainstream within three years.

At least 25 congressional candidates are QAnon supporters, per an Al Jazeera analysis. Most notably, Marjorie Taylor Greene — who has repeatedly espoused QAnon views — is well on her way to winning a seat in Georgia's heavily-Republican 14th congressional district. 

Meanwhile, seventeen Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against condemning QAnon.

The online poll interviewed a sample of U.S. registered voters intended to be nationally representative and weighted to match America's demography between Oct. 16 and 18.

Contributing: Nathan Bomey.

Follow Joshua Bote on Twitter: @joshua_bote.

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