A majority of Americans view allegations of sexual assault and past criminal convictions as disqualifying to serve in a presidential Cabinet position, according to new polling from YouGov, a research data and analytics technology group.

The findings come as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for a second term and is announcing how he plans to fill out his Cabinet. Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women and found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, has long surrounded himself with other men accused of sexual misconduct.

Now, Trump is nominating several people accused of sexual misconduct, conflicts of interest and other forms of wrongdoing to Cabinet positions and other top posts. Many have also been criticized for their lack of experience and qualifications to lead federal departments. 

YouGov asked if the following factors should be disqualifying for a Cabinet nominee: 

• Links to extremist groups: 70 percent said yes, 14 percent said no
• Allegations of having sex with a minor: 70 percent said yes, 16 percent said no  
• Allegations of links to hostile foreign governments: 66 percent said yes, 18 percent said no 
• Financial conflicts of interest: 63 percent said yes, 17 percent said no
• Allegations of sexual assault: 62 percent said yes, 22 percent said no 
• Allegations of financial misconduct: 59 percent said yes, 22 percent said no
• Lack of relevant expertise: 58 percent said yes, 25 percent said no
• History of substance abuse: 51 percent said yes, 28 percent said no
• Being a family member of the president: 35 percent said yes, 44 percent said no

The poll surveyed 1,125 American adults from November 22 to 27 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. 

In the poll, 66 percent of women and 58 percent of men agreed allegations of sexual assault are disqualifying for a Cabinet nominee. There were also partisan divides: 43 percent of those who voted for Trump but 87 percent of those who said they voted for Vice President Kamala Harris said sexual assault allegations are disqualifying. 

Current Trump nominees who have been linked to sexual misconduct allegations include Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense; Robert F. Kennedy Jr, his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; and former Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE) CEO Linda McMahon, whom he’s nominating to lead the Department of Education and who was head of the Small Business Administration in his first term. Hegseth and McMahon have denied the allegations against them, while Kennedy has acknowledged what he has described as the many “skeletons” in his closet. He apologized via text message to a woman, Eliza Cooney, who told Vanity Fair that Kennedy inappropriately touched her while she was working as an intern in his law clinic and as a nanny for the family in the late 1990s, when she was in her early 20s.

McMahon is named in a lawsuit brought by five men who worked as WWE “ring boys” in the 1980s and 1990s who allege that McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, from whom she is now separated, turned a blind eye to the sexual assault of the boys, who were teenagers, by WWE employees. An attorney for McMahon previously said in a statement to The 19th that the lawsuit, filed in October, “is filled with scurrilous lies, exaggerations and misrepresentations.”

“The matter at the time was investigated by company attorneys and the FBI, which found no grounds to continue the investigation,” said the lawyer, Laura A. Brevetti. “Ms. McMahon will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and without doubt ultimately succeed.”

In 2020, Hegseth paid a settlement of an undisclosed sum to a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her at an October 2017 conference of the California Federation of Republican Women in Monterey, California. The Monterey Police Department investigated the allegation after the woman filed a report, but prosecutors did not bring charges against Hegseth. Hegseth maintains the encounter was consensual and has denied any wrongdoing, recently telling reporters: “As far as the media’s concerned, I’ll keep it very simple: the matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared.” 

An article in the New Yorker published late Sunday night outlined additional allegations against Hegseth, reporting that people who had worked with him said Hegseth mismanaged funds, abused alcohol at work functions and presided over a toxic workplace environment for women employees while he was managing two nonprofit organizations focused on veterans. A representative for Hegseth called the accusations, some of which were detailed in a whistleblower report, “outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s.”

A slim majority of Americans said a past history of substance abuse was disqualifying and 59 percent said allegations of financial misconduct were disqualifying for a Cabinet nominee. 

Allegations of illicit drug use and sexual misconduct swirled around Trump’s first pick for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz. He withdrew his nomination for the post as the House Ethics Committee was weighing whether to release a report on its investigation of allegations of sex trafficking, having sex with minors and violations of House ethics rules. The Department of Justice previously investigated the allegations against Gaetz but did not charge him; he has repeatedly and strenuously denied the accusations.   

In the YouGov poll, 70 percent of respondents, including 59 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of Trump voters, said that allegations of having sex with a minor were disqualifying for a Cabinet nominee. 

Trump has since nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department.

The YouGov poll also found that two-thirds of Americans, including over half of Republicans and Trump voters, said allegations of links to hostile foreign governments are disqualifying. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for the nation’s chief intelligence post, will likely come under scrutiny in her confirmation hearings for her controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard cast doubt on findings from the U.S. intelligence community and the United Nations that Assad, who Gabbard said “is not the enemy,” deployed chemical weapons on civilians. Gabbard has also criticized U.S. involvement in supporting Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022, earning her praise on Russian state television. 

Two of Trump’s picks, Kennedy and Charles Kushner, his nominee for U.S. ambassador to France, also have criminal records. In the poll, 61 percent of voters said criminal convictions are disqualifying for Cabinet nominees, with a stark partisan divide: 84 percent of Harris voters but only 45 percent of Trump voters agreed. In May, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. 

Kennedy, who has been open about his past struggles with drug addiction, pleaded guilty to heroin possession in 1984 after he was found with the drug in his luggage on a flight to South Dakota. 

Kushner, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer and the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has served time in federal prison. In 2005, he was sentenced to 24 months after pleading guilty to tax fraud, campaign finance violations and retaliating against a cooperating witness by hiring a sex worker to seduce his brother-in-law, secretly recording the encounter on video and sending it to his sister as retribution for her cooperation in the tax evasion case against him. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who prosecuted the case as U.S. attorney, called Kushner’s offenses among “the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he prosecuted. Trump pardoned Kushner at the end of his first term.