Majority Of Democrats Support Impeaching Donald Trump, Even If It Means Risking 2020 Election

A majority of Democrat voters support carrying out the impeachment process against Donald Trump, even if it means hurting the party’s chances of taking back the White House in the 2020 election, a new Reuters poll reveals.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, the results of which you can read here, took place Monday and Tuesday. Pollsters took responses from 1,118 adults, 454 of whom identify as Democrats and 457 of whom identify as Republicans.

Among Democrats, the poll found that 55 percent support impeaching Donald Trump even “if it means a lengthy and expensive process that could weaken their chances of winning the presidency in 2020.” Additionally, 66 percent of respondents who identify as Democrats support impeaching Trump even if it means that the Democratic Party will be tied up in impeachment proceedings instead of passing laws that would benefit ordinary Americans.

Overall, 45 percent of all respondents (not just Democrats, but Republicans and Independents as well) say that Trump should be impeached, while 39 percent say he should not be impeached. As has been the case with this question in similar polls, there’s a deep partisan divide: 79 percent of Republicans said Trump should be impeached, while only 12 percent of Republicans say Trump should be impeached.

As for whether or not Trump will be impeached, 41 percent say it’s likely, while 51 percent say it’s unlikely. Fourteen percent think he’ll resign before he’s impeached and/or removed from office, while 79 percent find that scenario unlikely.

Support for Trump’s impeachment had been steadily growing ever since the news first broke that he had purportedly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. However, between last week and this week, support for Trump’s impeachment remained largely unchanged, with overall support for impeachment hovering around 45 percent. However, opposition to impeachment dropped by two percentage points over the past week.

Beyond impeachment, the poll numbers still don’t look good for Trump, even when the responses of all voters (not just Democrats) are taken into account. For example, 58 percent say that things are generally on the wrong track in this country. Only 20 percent strongly approve of Trump’s job performance, while 43 percent strongly disapprove.

Analyst Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that these poll numbers demonstrate that Democratic voters have largely stepped in line with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi had long been reluctant to pursue impeachment, insisting instead that her party should focus not on impeaching Trump, but on improving the lives of everyday Americans through their legislative agenda. However, once the Ukraine story broke, both Pelosi and the Democratic votes who support her party have gotten on board with impeachment.

“That phone call [between Trump and Zelensky] changed everything,” Kamarck said.