In just about three weeks, the first votes in the presidential primary season will be tallied when Iowan voters gather to weigh in on party presidential nominees. In the meantime, there’s a new poll out of the state that has bad news for President Donald Trump. Although he and his allies have consistently claimed to have some kind of overwhelming support against impeachment from Americans at large, even in the “red” state of Iowa, which Trump won by just over nine percent in 2016, only a slim plurality of voters oppose Trump’s impeachment.
Only 45 percent of respondents said that they actively disapprove of Trump’s impeachment, while 43 percent of respondents said that they were in favor of it. That’s hardly an overwhelming leading margin for the opposition! Even fewer Iowa voters say that they’d definitely vote to re-elect Trump if the general election were held today. More — 44 percent of respondents — say they’d definitely vote to elect someone else, while Trump’s “definite” base topped out at just 34 percent of respondents. How exactly is he going to win the state with barely a third of the voters “definitely” in support of his candidacy in the midst of one of the final spikes in the presidential campaign season? From here on out, it’s campaign time until November — and Trump seemingly doesn’t have a winning base in place even in Iowa.
Partisan divides on the various questions fall pretty predictably, although glaringly — only 59 percent of Republican respondents said they believe that “it is not OK for a US presidential candidate to try to gain political advantage over an election rival by seeking help from foreign countries.” Just 59 percent! The president’s plot to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals ahead of 2020 is what drove House Democrats to impeachment. As CNN notes, “92% of Democrats say it’s not OK, as do 73% of independents ” — both of which are, of course, larger majorities of people willing to admit the obvious than are found in the Republican camp.
Meanwhile, 87 percent of Democrats say they approve of Trump’s impeachment, while 90 percent of Republicans say they disapprove. “Among independents, more disapprove of the impeachment (48%) than approve (39%),” CNN adds. Overall ratios are similar on the question of whether the president should be removed from office in his upcoming Senate trial. “48% say the President should not be removed from office, while 40% think he should be,” CNN says. Only 51 percent of independents oppose his removal. On the general election question, 40 percent of independent respondents said they’d definitely vote for someone other than Trump, while just 32 percent supported Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump is keeping up the pressure and public complaints. On Sunday, he petulantly tweeted:
‘Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!’
Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
Well, he’s impeached because of all the crimes! Democrats have made their impeachment case evidence public to the tunes of hundreds of pages. He can’t just wish that out of existence.
