Polls: Endless Pursuit of Impeachment Spells Trouble for Democrats
by HANNAH BLEAU
BREITBART.COM23 Nov 2019
The Democrats’ desperate pursuit of impeachment is driving key voters away – a sign of danger for Democrats going into 2020 – polling reveals.
Polls, in recent days, have indicated that the general public is growing weary of House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) endless pursuit of impeachment, with survey after survey showing opposition to impeachment growing and support falling. The results, however, are exacerbated when key voters, such as independents, are isolated.
A Siena College Research Institute poll released this week showed that independent voters in New York overwhelmingly oppose impeachment, 59 percent to 37 percent. Additionally, 51 percent of independents described the inquiry as a “partisan attack on President Trump,” while 43 percent said it is a “fair investigation.”
The results coincided with a National Emerson College poll and a Politico-Morning Consult poll, both of which showed an increase in independent voters’ opposition to impeachment.
The overwhelming data led to a Vanity Fair article titled “‘It Is Hard to Read This as Anything but a Warning’: New Polling Suggests Democrats’ Impeachment Push Could Alienate Key Voters.”
“Data exclusive to Vanity Fair shows impeachment could be a losing issue for Democrats hoping to recruit Independents in 2020. ‘Lots of people who don’t like Trump who are still prepared to vote for him,’ says one political science expert,” Vanity Fair reported.
“Independents are also one of the keys, if not the key, to the 2020 elections,” the article read, noting the shift in sentiments among those voters in recent weeks:
Alas, for the Democrats, the promising numbers of late October and early November rapidly dissipated, and polling numbers have reverted to a level more consistent with long-term opinions on President Trump. In the latest Politico/Morning Consult poll, released on November 19, Independents opposed impeachment and removal from office 46% to 39%, a number close to the rolling averages of the last few weeks. It is notable that the poll was fielded after the first public impeachment hearings. Even the compelling testimony of witnesses like Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, failed to move the needle on public opinion. That doesn’t mean further hearings won’t energize greater opposition to Trump, but it’s a little hard to imagine more effective testimony than that offered by Yovanovitch and some of her Foreign Service colleagues.
To understand the relative lack of enthusiasm among Independents for impeachment, I took a close look at data from the most recent Politico/Morning Consult tracking poll, a poll in which the Hive had the opportunity to propose questions focused on Independents and their views. The data, along with supplementary interviews, illustrates an electorate that believes the impeachment inquiry is connected to the priorities of politicians and the media—not of ordinary voters—and an electorate confused and dispirited by the nonstop parade of Washington scandals.
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