If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

POLITICS

39% of Republicans Want to Expel Romney from GOP; 18% Undecided

Mitt Romney was the only Republican senator who voted guilty last week on one of the impeachment counts brought against President Trump by House Democrats. Many Republicans were furious at Romney, and a sizable number of GOP voters are ready to throw him out of the party.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 39% of Likely Republican Voters think Romney should be expelled from the Republican Party. Only slightly more (43%) disagree, while nearly one-in-five (18%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans now have an unfavorable opinion of the man who was the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, with 38% who view him Very Unfavorably. That compares to 47% and 29% respectively last October. Thirty percent (30%) still share a favorable view of the Utah senator, down from 41% four months ago, including 17% with a Very Favorable one.

Democrats, however, have a new respect for Romney. Sixty percent (60%) now regard him favorably, up from 47% last fall. Unaffiliated voters are closely divided.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted February 6 and 9, 2020 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.

Romney, during the 2016 presidential campaign and since his election to the Senate in 2018, has been a consistent Trump critic. But 63% of GOP voters think their party should be more like Trump than like Romney. Thirty percent (30%) say it should be more like Romney

Among all likely voters, 48% view Romney favorably, 43% unfavorably, with 22% Very Favorable and 23% Very Unfavorable. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think Romney should be expelled from the GOP, but 59% disagree. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of self-identified liberals and 53% of moderates view Romney favorably, compared to 31% of conservatives. Conservative voters are more than twice as likely as the others to think Romney should be expelled from the GOP.

Fifty percent (50%) of voters who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing believe Romney should be kicked out of the Republican Party. Among those who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s job performance, 82% disagree.

Most voters opposed the U.S. Senate’s removal of Trump from office and say his future should be left up to them in November.

Republicans have long felt much more strongly than Democrats that their congressional representatives are out of touch with the party’s base.

When Romney criticized Trump during the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, just 15% of GOP voters said they were more likely to vote for a candidate he endorsed, while slightly more (17%) said they were less likely to do so.

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

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it's free) or follow us on Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted February 6 and 9, 2020 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.

Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.

We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.

Some information, including the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and commentaries are available for free to the general public. Subscriptions are available for $4.95 a month or 34.95 a year that provide subscribers with exclusive access to more than 20 stories per week on upcoming elections, consumer confidence, and issues that affect us all. For those who are really into the numbers, Platinum Members can review demographic crosstabs and a full history of our data.

To learn more about our methodology, click here.