A majority of Kentucky voters do not want to see the Senate convict former President Trump of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a new survey from Mason-Dixon Polling and Research. 

A slight majority of respondents — 51 percent — said they would oppose Trump’s conviction in his impeachment trial should the Senate find him guilty of stoking an effort by his supporters to storm the Capitol and disrupt the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote last month. 

By comparison, 41 percent said they believe Trump should be convicted on the charges, while another 8 percent remain undecided on the matter, the poll found. 

The poll, conducted just days before Trump’s impeachment trial began, suggests that the former president continues to pull strong support from the same voters who backed his unsuccessful bid for a second term in the White House. 

Trump carried Kentucky in the November presidential election by nearly 26 points, marking one of his largest margins of victory in any state.

Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate — his second in little more than a year — began this week, with House Democrats arguing that the former president had not only incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 but had spent months laying the foundation for his false claim that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him.

Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, have maintained that the former president’s rhetoric surrounding the election is protected free speech under the First Amendment. 

Kentucky Republican voters overwhelmingly believe that Trump should be acquitted of the charge, with 86 percent opposing his conviction and only 11 percent support it. Independent voters also lean in Trump’s favor, with 61 percent believing he should be acquitted and 29 percent supporting conviction, the Mason-Dixon poll found.

Sixty-nine percent of Democratic voters want to see the former president convicted compared to 11 percent who do not. 

President Biden, meanwhile, is beginning his term in office with an underwater approval rating in Kentucky. 

Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they approve of the job he is doing in the White House, while nearly half of those surveyed — 49 percent — said they disapprove of the new president’s performance. Twelve percent are unsure. 

Biden’s approval numbers suggest that his standing in the state hasn’t improved much since November, when he carried about 36 percent of the vote to Trump’s 62 percent. Still, his lackluster support in the state shouldn’t come as a surprise; no Democratic presidential candidate has won Kentucky since former President Clinton in 1996.

The Mason-Dixon poll is based on telephone interviews with 625 registered voters in Kentucky conducted Feb. 1-4. It has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.