Polling Shows Democrats Have Lost Faith in Impeachment in Just 1 Month
As Democrats ramp up their impeachment push, newly released polling shows a majority of Democratic voters now believe President Donald Trump will complete his first term.
The number of Democrats who don’t think Trump will be removed from office before the end of his term has increased to 56 percent, up 7 percentage points from last month’s results, according to a Hill-HarrisX survey.
Meanwhile, 93 percent of Republicans see Trump staying in office, a 4 percentage point increase from October.
Overall, 73 percent of the voters surveyed believe that Trump will complete his first term.
The poll was conducted online among 1,204 registered voters between Nov. 8 and Nov. 9, ahead of Wednesday’s first public testimony in the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry into Trump’s delay of military aid to Ukraine.
At a news conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the hearing as a “successful day for truth” and alleged that Trump had engaged in “bribery” for his own political benefit.
In a tweet Wednesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy noted some key facts that work against Pelosi’s allegation.
First, the transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows no quid pro quo.
Further, Zelensky has stated on multiple occasions he did not feel pressured by Trump’s phone call to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden or his son, Hunter.
Based on testimony by acting U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Bill Taylor on Wednesday, Ukraine had no knowledge the aid was being withheld until after Trump’s call with Zelensky, making it very hard to argue a quid pro quo had been suggested.
Finally, the aid was in fact released in mid-September.
McCarthy noted that GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York made the point succinctly during Wednesday’s hearing.
“For the millions of Americans viewing today, the two most important facts are the following: Number 1: Ukraine received the aid. Number 2: There was, in fact, no investigation into Biden,” Stefanik said.
.@RepStefanik is right: “For the millions of Americans viewing today, the two most important facts are the following:
“Number 1: Ukraine received the aid.
“Number 2: There was, in fact, no investigation into Biden.” pic.twitter.com/eZjrYbq6mz
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) November 13, 2019
Pelosi argued during her Thursday news conference that the American public needs more time to form its views on impeachment.
“Impeaching is a divisive thing in our country. It’s hard,” Pelosi said. “The place that our country is now, it’s not a time where you go to 70 percent when President Nixon walked out of the White House. It wasn’t there before he left, even two weeks before he left until the other shoe fell and he walked out of the door.”
“By the way, what President Trump has done on the record in terms of acting to advantage his, a foreign power to help him in his own election and the obstruction of information about that — the coverup — makes what Nixon did look almost small,” she added.
Gallup found that days before former President Richard Nixon left office in August 1974, 71 percent of Democrats supported his removal from office, and 19 percent did not. Among Republicans, 31 percent felt he should be moved and 59 percent did not.
So there was solid bipartisan support for Nixon to go.
By contrast, 87 percent of Democrats want Trump out of office, but only 7 percent of Republicans do. Ninety-two percent of Republicans oppose Trump’s removal.
As a reminder, Watergate involved the actual crime of breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., during Nixon’s re-election campaign, and him being caught on tape conspiring to cover up White House involvement.
It is becoming increasing clear, apparently even to Democratic voters, that no smoking gun of Trump wrongdoing exists, because there was in fact no crime.
The president was quick to release the transcript of the call with Zelensky, and proudly stood by his request for Ukraine to investigate public corruption in their country, even if it implicates the Bidens.
Here’s hoping that the Democrats’ purely political impeachment push backfires and propels Trump to a landslide victory in 2020 while returning control of the House to Republicans.
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