Majority of Americans don't want Trump to be impeached, new poll finds
The majority of Americans oppose removing President Trump through impeachment, according to a new poll by Monmouth University, even as his approval ratings remain low.
According to the Monmouth poll released Thursday, 35% of Americans support impeaching Mr. Trump and removing him from office, while 59% of Americans oppose that course of action. Only 41% of Americans want the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment inquiry against the president.
A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives support opening an impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler told CNN earlier this month that his committee had started "formal impeachment proceedings." He also said that the committee would decide whether to bring articles of impeachment to the House floor before the end of the year.
If the House, which has a Democratic majority, were to vote to impeach Mr. Trump, the Senate would vote on removing him. A two-thirds super majority in the Senate is required to convict and remove him from office.
The poll found that Americans are far from confident that the Senate would vote to remove Mr. Trump from office, even if the House were to pass articles of impeachment. Only 20% of Americans believe that the Senate would vote to oust the president. Nearly one third of Americans, 31%, believe that a formal impeachment process without removal would strengthen Mr. Trump's re-election bid.
There is a significant partisan divide in opinions on whether to impeach Mr. Trump. Although 72% of Democrats believe Mr. Trump should be impeached, only 39% of independents and 8% of Republicans support impeachment.
Mr. Trump's approval rating remains underwater, with a 40% approval rating and a 53% disapproval rating. However, Congress is in even more trouble: 17% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 71% disapprove.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from August 16 to 20, 2019 with 800 adults in the United States. The question results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.
Fin Gomez contributed to this report