Americans remain closely divided on whether the Senate should vote to remove President Donald Trump from office, according to a set of new surveys conducted in advance of the impeachment trial beginning this week. Although the exact margins range from narrow support to narrow opposition, all indicate that opinions remain deeply polarized.
In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, Americans say, by a margin of 47% to 41%, that they want their senators to vote in favor of convicting and removing Trump. Forty-six percent say he should be removed from office, and 43% say that he shouldn’t.
The results on the latter question are well within the range of past HuffPost/YouGov surveys, suggesting that public opinion has remained largely stable since the start of the House impeachment hearings last fall. (A separate poll taken earlier this month found greater opposition to ousting the president, but so far that doesn’t appear to have marked the start of a trend.)
Views are sharply partisan: 85% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would like their senators to vote for Trump’s conviction and removal, while 89% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say their senators should vote against this.
Americans give negative ratings to both parties for their handling of the inquiry, but the GOP fares moderately worse. Forty-one percent of Americans approve of congressional Democrats’ actions, with 46% disapproving, while 35% approve of congressional Republicans’ actions, with 49% disapproving. The public also rates Trump’s handling of the inquiry negatively, with 37% approving and 51% disapproving.
Just 20% of Americans think it’s even somewhat likely that Trump will be removed from office, with 69% saying it’s not very or not at all likely, and the rest not sure.
The latest HuffPost/YouGov survey is just one of several impeachment-related polls released in the past few days. About 47% of the public supports Trump’s removal, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of polls.
Here are the main takeaways from a few of those other recent surveys:
CNN/SSRS: “About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict President Donald Trump and remove him from office in the upcoming impeachment trial (51%), according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 45% say the Senate should vote against conviction and removal. Nearly seven in 10 (69%) say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry. ... Massive partisan gaps continue to dominate views on Trump and his impeachment trial.”
Monmouth University: “A majority of Americans say that House managers should be able to introduce new evidence in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Most also say that Trump and members of his administration should be asked to appear at the trial, but there is a deep partisan split on whether they should be compelled to do so. ... Just over half of the American public (53%) approve of the House of Representatives decision to impeach Trump, while 46% disapprove. Support for the U.S. Senate actually removing Trump from office now that he has been impeached stands at 49% who agree with this, while a similar 48% say Trump should not be removed.”
Gallup: “Forty-six percent of Americans say they would like their senators to vote to convict Trump and remove him from office, while 51% want their senators to vote against conviction so Trump will remain as president. ... As was the case for Clinton, the impeachment of Trump has not had a noticeably negative effect on his popular support.”
Quinnipiac: “Voters are divided on whether the Senate should vote to remove President Trump from office, as 48 percent say the Senate should not vote to remove him and 46 percent say they should. Democrats think he should be removed 87 - 7 percent, independents are divided 48 - 44 percent, and Republicans think he should not be removed 94 - 5 percent.”
NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist: “Americans are split evenly about whether or not the Senate should remove Trump from office. An equal share — 47 percent — either support the U.S. Senate removing Trump from office or oppose ousting him. An additional 6 percent of respondents said they were unsure.”
Use the widget below to further explore the results of the HuffPost/YouGov survey, using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups:
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Jan. 15-17 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some but not all potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.