Gallup survey finds 52% support for impeachment
A majority of US adults support the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump from office, a Gallup poll released Wednesday finds, continuing a trend of recent surveys that have found increased support for the Democratic-led effort.
Fifty-two percent of Americans support impeaching and removing Trump from office, while 46% disagree. That’s a 7-point increase from when Gallup asked the question in June about impeachment and removal after former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Support for impeachment among Democrats and independents is at 89% and 55%, respectively, with independent support climbing 9 points since June. Republican support remains low — 6% back the impeachment effort in the new survey, down a percentage point from four months ago.
Trump’s approval rating has remained steady at 39%, Gallup found. The poll also revealed that the approval rating of Congress is now at 25%, up from 18% before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry in September.
The level of support for Trump’s impeachment is much higher than it ever was for former President Bill Clinton and above that for former President Richard Nixon in all but a final poll taken before the 37th president’s resignation, according to the Gallup survey.
“In myriad ways, the headwinds Trump faces are quite different from the ones faced by his embattled predecessors,” Gallup’s release stated. “Today’s hyper-partisan enviornment” is partially responsible, Gallup said, as nearly all Democrats favor removing Trump from office.
Gallup’s findings of support for impeachment are in line with several recent surveys, which have found roughly half of Americans support Democrats’ actions. One of those polls, conducted by Fox News that found 51% of voters want Trump impeached and removed from office, was criticized sharply by Trump, even though the findings were consistent with other recent surveys on the issue.
A transcript of a July phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released by the White House shows Trump repeatedly pushed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden.
Even before a whistleblower complaint was made available to lawmakers, Pelosi declared Trump had betrayed his oath of office and announced she was opening a formal impeachment inquiry into the President. On Tuesday, she said she will not hold a full House vote for now to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, a step Republicans and defenders of the President have demanded.
The Gallup poll was conducted by telephone interviews, 70% of which were via cell phone, with a random sample of 1,526 adults aged 18 and older living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
