With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi having decided to move forward on impeachment, many Republicans and conservative commentators have been outwardly giddy. This will be a disaster for Democrats, they argue, because polls have shown impeachment is immensely unpopular.
The move may end up proving unpopular, but Republicans cannot make that assumption at this point, because the polling we have on impeachment is dated and does not reflect the fast-moving developments of the Ukraine story.
Though polling on impeachment has varied based on how the question is asked, it is true that surveys have tended to show that more people oppose the idea than support it. Massive, bitter, partisan fights that drag on for months and prevent anything from getting accomplished tend to turn off many voters.
That having been said, there’s plenty of room for people to warm up to impeachment if the release of further information on Ukraine proves incriminating.
There also is some low-hanging fruit for Democrats. Trump’s approval rating has been consistently underwater and currently stands at 45-52 in the RealClearPolitics average. That means there’s a decent chunk of Americans that up until now have been anti-Trump but also anti-impeachment. In other words, for the impeachment numbers to move, it doesn’t require flipping Trump supporters, it requires convincing those who dislike him anyway to get behind this effort.
Also, the impeachment polls up to this point have reflected the fact that the Hosue Democrats been divided on impeachment, with leadership having spent months making the case against it. As they unify around the idea of impeachment and start hammering home their message, it’s likely to rally more support among Democratic voters. A July Quinnipiac poll that showed 2 to 1 opposition to impeachment found 29% of self-described Democrats opposing the move. The number of Democrats opposing the move is likely to shrink with the party going all in, which will improve the overall popularity numbers.
Now, it is of course possible that the release of further information will help vindicate Trump and undermine the impeachment drive, which will indeed blow up in Democrats’ faces. But either way, Republicans should not rely on old polling to assume impeachment will be unpopular.
