Most Voters Don’t Expect Senate to Convict Trump, Won’t Watch Impeachment Trial

The Senate begins its impeachment trial of former President Trump this week, but most voters don’t believe Trump will be convicted and few expect to watch the entire trial on TV.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 11% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is very likely the Senate will convict Trump of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Another 20% say conviction is somewhat likely. Twenty-eight percent (28%) think it’s not very likely the Senate will convict Trump and 36% say conviction is not likely at all. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The House voted last month to impeach then-President Trump on charges that he incited his supporters to riot at the Capitol on January 6. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate for conviction.

Only 15% of voters say they’ll watch the entire Senate impeachment trial on TV, and 21% expect to watch most of it. Thirty percent (30%) say they’ll watch some of Trump’s trial, but 32% won’t watch any of it.

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The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on February 4 and 7, 2021 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to expect the Senate to convict Trump of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but even among Democrats, a majority are doubtful of conviction. Only 14% of Democrats say it’s very likely Trump will be convicted, and another 28% say a Senate conviction vote is somewhat likely. Fifty-two percent (53%) of Democrats say Trump’s conviction is either not very likely or not likely at all, a view shared by 72% of Republicans and 71% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

Trump was acquitted by the Senate last year in his first impeachment trial. At the time, a majority of voters opposed removing Trump from office, saying the issue should be decided by the November election.

Now that Trump has left office and Joe Biden is president, interest in Trump’s second impeachment trial is highest among Biden’s supporters. Among voters who strongly approve of Biden’s job performance, 55% say they’ll watch either all or most of Trump’s Senate trial on TV. Only 22% of those who strongly disapprove of Biden’s performance as president expect to watch either all or most of Trump’s trial.

Women voters are more likely than men to say they’ll watch most or all of the Senate impeachment trial. More black voters than whites or other minorities say it is likely the Senate will convict Trump of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

In the immediate aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot, 50% of voters said they supported removing President Trump from office before Joe Biden’s January 20 inauguration.

Once Biden had been inaugurated, however, most voters said Trump should be acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial, and 57% said they expect the trial to make America’s political division worse.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.