There are a bunch of polls out today about impeachment. One that is getting a lot of attention is the Fox News poll that shows 50% support for impeachment and removal versus 41% who oppose impeachment. The fact that it’s Fox gets a lot of attention. But as we’ve discussed before, the Fox News poll — as opposed to Fox News — is a rightly respected poll. We should see it as separate from Fox News.
The real story is that support and opposition to impeachment remain remarkably, remarkably stable.
Here are a few charts.
Here’s the 538 chart since the beginning of the Ukraine scandal on an impeachment inquiry.
Here’s the chart on impeachment and removal. Ideally you’d have charts which distinguish between impeachment and impeachment and removal, as for instance the Fox Poll does. But this is a fairly thin distinction. Presumably if you think Trump should be impeached you also think he should be removed from office.
As you can see the numbers are remarkably stable. The one change you can perhaps see is a very slight consolidation of opposition to impeachment but not any real diminishment of support for it.
Here’s one final chart, the congressional generic ballot.
I wouldn’t put too much into this a year out from the election. But as you can see there’s a slight move toward the Democrats or away from Republicans over the last two or three weeks after some very slight GOP consolidation a month earlier. I wouldn’t see this as much evidence that impeachment is damaging Republican chances. But it certainly suggests little evidence that there’s any impeachment backlash.
