Poll finds sharp swing in opposition to impeachment among independents

A new national survey finds independent voters leading a sharp swing in opposition to impeachment, the second major poll to produce those findings this week.

The latest national poll from Emerson College finds 45 percent oppose impeaching President Trump, against 43 percent who support it. That’s a 6-point swing in support from October, when 48 percent of voters supported impeachment and only 44 percent opposed.

More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it, a significant change from Emerson’s polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.

Since October, Emerson has found Trump’s job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43 percent to 48 percent.

This is the second poll this week to show voters are increasingly likely to oppose impeachment, despite wall-to-wall media coverage of the House hearings that have produced bombshell testimony about how Trump threatened to withhold financial aid to Ukraine if the country did not open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A Marquette University survey of Wisconsin, a battleground state that Trump turned red in 2016 for the first time in decades, found 40 percent think the president should be impeached and removed, against 53 percent who do not think so.

In October, 44 percent favored impeachment and removal and 51 percent opposed.

Only 36 percent of independent respondents in Wisconsin support impeachment and removal.

The Marquette pollster wrote that the new survey “finds consistent, if sometimes modest, shifts in public opinion away from support of impeachment and toward supporting Trump in next year’s presidential election.”

The Marquette survey found Trump leading Biden by 3 points after trailing him by 6 points in October. The president also leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 3 points and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by 5 points.

The Emerson College poll of 1,092 registered voters was conducted between Nov. 17 and Nov. 20 and has a 2.9 percentage point margin of error. The survey includes 713 voters who were reached by landline and 379 who took part in an online panel.