Dear CNN: New Poll Shows President Trump Leads All Democrat Opponents Despite Impeachment Circus — Is That News?
A new poll of registered voters shows President Trump leading all of his Democrat opponents and securing a second term.
President Trump is the first modern president to face impeachment in his first term and the push for impeachment had begun from before his inauguration. Before he had been in office for a year, President Trump faced several attempts by Democrats to put forward articles of impeachment against him.
In August 2017, Rep. Steve Cohen(D-TN) announced his plan to introduce articles of impeachment because President Trump “failed the presidential test of moral leadership” after the Media(D) went insane and misrepresented the President’s comments after the terrible death of Heather Heyer during the rally and counter-protest in Charlottesville.
In November, six Democrats, including Rep. Cohen, introduced H-Res621 which included five articles of impeachment. It was referred to the Justice Committee. Then, in December Rep. Al Green(D-TX) put forward H.Res646 to bring forward articles of impeachment against the President and 57 House Democrats voted to impeach President Trump but that vote failed.
Several Democrats were then elected to Congress in 2018 on the platform of impeaching President Trump, and it’s just ramped up since then.
But it’s not partisan, though.
The question is, is this baldly partisan move resonating with the voters? It doesn’t look like it.
The USA Today/Suffolk University poll questioned 1,000 registered voters and found that the voters would rather have a Trump second term than have him impeached. Further, even if he is impeached, a majority — slim though it might be — don’t think that he should be removed from office.
The national survey, taken as the House of Representatives planned an impeachment vote and the Senate a trial, showed Trump defeating former Vice President Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 5 points, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8 points.
In hypothetical head-to-head contests, Trump also led South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg by 10 points and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.
Polls taken nearly a year before an election are hardly a reliable indicator about what the eventual outcome will be, especially when the other nominee hasn’t been chosen. But the findings do indicate that impeachment hearings detailing what critics see as Trump’s violations of the Constitution and his oath of office haven’t undermined his core political support.
Trump’s standing remained remarkably steady regardless of his opponent, at 45% against Warren, 44% against Biden and Sanders, and 43% against Buttigieg and Bloomberg.
Source: USA TODAY
The article notes that the President’s support is “hitting a ceiling” and it could be bad news for him, and a third-party candidate could swing the election one way or the other.
It is early to look at the polls, and, as we saw in 2016, they can’t always be trusted.
But that also means that the President may actually have more silent support that will appear in the voting booth and not in polling. There is pressure for those who are soft Trump supporters, (or are at least, opposing a particular Democrat candidate,) to not indicate support for President Trump in a binary election for fear of being labeled a bigot.
Yet, this poll shows that the impeachment farce is, just like it is in Congress, dividing people along partisan lines. The key will be what independents think — and we already know they’re not keen on impeachment.
Great work, Democrats!
