A new poll finds support for impeachment is on the rise, but the shift is primarily attributable to those who already “strongly disapprove” of President Trump.
The poll from Morning Consult taken this Tuesday through Thursday, which comes amid breaking developments on the Ukraine story and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moving forward with impeachment, finds that the public is now evenly divided, with 43% favoring Congress beginning impeachment proceedings, and the same number opposing the move. That’s up from a poll taken over the weekend, from Sept. 20 through 22, in which just 36% supported the idea compared to 49% who opposed it.
Earlier this week, I observed that the opposition to impeachment included a subset of voters who were both anti-Trump and anti-impeachment, and theorized that this group of voters was the low-hanging fruit for Democrats.
That is now backed up by this data, as the number of people who “strongly disapprove” of Trump and oppose impeachment has narrowed considerably.
The most dramatic shift came among Democrats. In the earlier poll, 77% of Democrats expressed strong disapproval for Trump, but just 66% of Democrats actually favored impeaching him. In the more recent survey, 78% of Democrats express “strong disapproval” and 79% backed impeachment.
As you can see in the table, the gap between the two groups has now nearly disappeared among every subgroup. That suggests that the initial swing in support for impeachment is coming from hardened anti-Trump voters who, for whatever reason, did not believe going through an impeachment ordeal was worth it before the most recent developments.
In the coming weeks, Democrats will have to focus on the next most likely voters to be converted — the 12% overall who only “somewhat disapprove” of Trump. If they convert those voters, they can start claiming majority support for impeachment.
The bigger challenge will hinge on whether Democrats can convert people who currently say they approve of Trump. If they can do that, you may actually start to see some Republican defections in the Senate.
