Poll: Slightly More Americans Oppose Impeaching Trump than Support It: ‘It’s like the Hearings … Never Happened’

An NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll shows that a slight majority of American adults are against impeaching President Donald Trump, with 48 percent opposing and 47 percent in favor.

This comes as the House plans to vote this week on articles of impeachment. Passage is expected strictly along party lines, as was the case for the vote that advanced impeachment out of the House Judiciary Committee.

NPR’s article on the poll notes that this is virtually unchanged since the same question was asked in November, with 47 percent supporting impeachment and 46 percent opposing — although opposition has grown by 2 percent, and those supporting it remains at 47 percent.

“It’s like the hearings have never happened,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said.

“The arguments have only served to reinforce existing views, and everyone is rooting for their side,” Miringoff said.

NPR reported on its poll:

The poll found Trump’s approval rating essentially unchanged at 42%, with familiar splits evident — there are sizable gender and education gaps, with college-educated women overwhelmingly disapproving of the president.

And Americans are divided by where they live, with those in cities and suburbs disapproving of the president and people in rural areas approving of the job he’s doing.

The survey found that 51% believe that the ideas being offered by Trump would generally move the U.S. in the wrong direction, but they’re split on what they think of what Democrats are offering — 45% say Democrats’ ideas would move the country in the wrong direction, and 44% say they would move it in the right one.

“There’s not a lot of persuasion going on,” Miringoff said in the NPR report. “This is definitely lining up to be all about the base.”

“You can do all the message-testing and convincing and persuasion [efforts], but it’s going to be about targeting your group and making sure they show,” Miringoff said.

The survey was of 1,744 adults taken between December 9 and 11 using live callers via cell and landlines, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.54 percentage points.

“There were 1,508 registered voters surveyed, and where they are referenced, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points,” NPR reported on the poll methodology. “There were 704 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed, and where they are referenced, results have a plus of minus 5.4 percentage point margin of error.”

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