More Americans now support Donald Trump's impeachment, say surveys
President Donald Trump might be in no mood to surrender while battling the impeachment inquiry but a number of surveys have indicated that more and more Americans are now backing it, and 13 months ahead of the next presidential elections, this is not a happy news for the GOP.
A survey from Civiqs has shown that 50 percent of Americans support Trump’s impeachment (as on Monday, October 7) and it is a six percentage-point rise since late September when the inquiry officially started. Another meta-analysis by ABC News-owned FiveThirtyEight said 48.9 percent of Americans back the president’s impeachment (as on Tuesday, October 8) and it also saw a 8.8 percentage-point rise since last month. Both the studies take into account the Independents besides the Democrats and Republicans.
Another survey, from Washington Post-Schar School, also corroborated the findings of the above two studies by suggesting that a majority of Americans are in favor of an impeachment probe. While 58 percent felt the Congress should have launched the impeachment procedure against the president with 43 percent among them feeling strongly in favor and the remaining 15 percent less strongly.
More Republicans support Trump's impeachment
The Civiqs and FiveThirtyEight surveys also found that the number of Democrats supporting the impeachment to be quite high. The former found it to be 88 percent while the latter 82.7 percent. Among the Independents, while 45.7 percent were found by FiveThirtyEight in favor of impeachment, Civiqs found it to be 48 percent. The numbers were predictably low in case of the Republicans -- 15 percent -- by FiveThirtyEight and eight percent -- by Civiqs. However, FiveThirtyEight’s finding says the figure increased to 15 percent from between 8-12 till the end of September when the inquiry was formally launched.
As per the WP-Schar School survey, 86 percent of Democrats feel the Congress should have launched an impeachment inquiry against the Republican president. Besides, 51 percent whites and males also felt the same. Sixty-six percent of the respondents in the age group of 18-39 supported the impeachment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the launch of the impeachment on September 24 following a whistleblower’s report accusing Trump of seeking help from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter over alleged wrongdoings linked with the East European country.
The opponents accused Trump of trying to undermine a domestic rival with the foreign help. Both Trump and his aides and Democrats have hardened their respective positions on the issue since then. While the president tried to project it to be a case of witch-hunting, the Democrats felt bolstered by a series of pollings indicating that support for Trump’s impeachment was only heading north.