Voters View Impeachment As DOA in GOP Senate

Even Democrats consider it highly unlikely that the Republican-run U.S. Senate will remove President Trump from office now that he has been impeached by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 24% of all Likely U.S. Voters think the upcoming trial in the Senate will result in Trump’s removal from office, and that includes only 12% who say it’s Very Likely. Three-out-of-four voters (73%) say Trump is unlikely to be forced out of the presidency, with 47% who feel it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats see Trump’s removal from office as unlikely, although that compares to 81% of Republicans and 78% of voters not affiliated with either major political party.

Predictably, 69% of Democrats say the bigger problem for pro-impeachment senators is Republican party loyalty, while a nearly identical number (67%) of GOP voters think the bigger roadblock is a lack of convincing evidence against Trump.  Unaffiliateds are evenly divided.

Among all voters, 48% say Republican party loyalty is the bigger problem for senators championing impeachment, while 45% say it’s a lack of convincing evidence against the president.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted December 22-23, 2019 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.

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republicans agree with Trump’s statement that the party line vote by House Democrats to impeach him is “an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat lawmakers.” But 74% of Democrats agree with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that “the president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.”

Those under 40 are far more optimistic than their elders that Trump will be removed from the presidency. Younger voters are also the most likely to see Republican party loyalty as the sticking point.

Nearly half (47%) of blacks think Trump’s removal from office is likely, compared to only 17% of whites and 33% of other minority voters.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of liberals and 52% of moderates consider GOP party loyalty as the bigger problem for pro-impeachment senators. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of conservatives think a lack of convincing evidence against Trump is the bigger problem for senators who want to oust the president.

Even among voters who Strongly Disapprove of the job Trump is doing, just 28% think he is likely to be removed from office.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of all voters favor Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives. Nearly as many (46%) are opposed.

But 81% understand that it is necessary for his opponents to produce evidence of criminal wrongdoing before proceeding with an impeachment. Only 12% incorrectly believe that a president can be impeached because his political opponents disagree with him.

Most Democrats believe House Republicans didn't support the president's impeachment because of GOP party loyalty, but most Republicans believe the impeachment was driven not by broken laws but by Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

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

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