With formal impeachment fast approaching -- and precious few Democratic defections, including among red district 2018 'majority makers' -- most of the national polling has shown support for impeaching and removing President Trump either stagnant or falling. Based on previous data, this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in swing states and battleground districts. We reviewed one relevant survey earlier in the week, which showed a pretty solid majority had turned against impeachment as the proper course of action under the circumstances. CNN, a rabidly pro-impeachment outlet, has been forced to report on its own in-house poll showing impeachment dropping underwater. The trend is clear:
The new CNN poll shows support for impeachment and removal at 45% and opposition at 47%. This is the fourth poll to come out today showing more opposition than support. RCP average now has 46.5% support and 47.4% oppose. https://t.co/sbmv26et9o pic.twitter.com/RHVaPGHLRn
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 17, 2019
Some network personalities are apparently struggling to grapple with these results:
CNN confronts reality-in CNN poll 25% of Americans think Trump getting impeached will hurt his re-election chances. 37% think it'll have no effect, and 32% think it will actually help him!
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) December 17, 2019
. "This poll hurts my head," said Anderson Cooper.
Reality is Trump 1-CNN 0
Count me among the 37 percent who say it'll be a wash, and likely a distant memory, by election day. Everyone knows how this will play out. But as he prepares to become just the third US president ever to be impeached (Nixon resigned, preempting the process from playing out further), President Trump's political fortunes are relatively ascendant. The latest Quinnipiac poll, whose surveys have been jammed with brutal results for the president over many months, has tracked Trump's job approval as tying its highest level in the series (albeit still at a fairly paltry 43/52). The economic numbers, however, are simply outstanding:
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These numbers from the Quinnipiac poll are why Trump will be hard to beat:
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) December 17, 2019
-73% rate the economy as good or excellent
-45% believe it will be better next year against 31% who say worse
-79% are optimistic about their financial future
Those are all about as high as you'll see.
As for Trump's standing against the 2020 Democratic field, here's what USA Today/Suffolk just found as part of the survey we flagged on Monday:
#NEW National General Election:
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) December 17, 2019
Trump 44 (+3)
Biden 41
Trump 44 (+5)
Sanders 39
Trump 45 (+8)
Warren 37
Trump 43 (+9)
Bloomberg 34
Trump 43 (+10)
Buttigieg 33
Suffolk University/USA Today Poll https://t.co/UMEwcYkoEu
The president is leading all five potential challengers, pretty comfortably so against Warren, Buttigieg and Bloomberg. Joe Biden is, unsurprisingly, most competitive -- with Bernie Sanders not far behind. Biden is the only competitor even cracking into the 40's. But the opposition party's candidates theoretically have higher ceilings than the incumbent. It is not great news at all for Trump that in spite of the eye-popping economic figures measured by Quinnipiac, he's still stuck at 43 percent approval. And it's also a red flag when a sitting officeholder consistently polls well below 50 percent, as Trump does. Even with these hypothetical leads, he's stuck five-to-seven points short of a majority. A "normal" president would be waltzing to re-election. Nevertheless, looking at those USA Today results, you'd rather be Trump than anyone else. Finally, because I opened with a sobering counterpoint from the newest Fox News poll in my previous polling post, I'll close with something similar here:
Fox News poll- 2020 matchups:
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) December 15, 2019
Biden 48, Trump 41 (was +12)
Warren 46, Trump 45 (was +5)
Sanders 49, Trump 43 (was +8)
Buttigieg 43, Trump 42 (was tied)
Bloomberg 45, Trump 40
Trump cuts the lead for every Dem except Buttigieg, while even Bloomberg starts out beating Trump by 5.
Pick your preferred poll, partisans. I'll note that the Fox data is not as favorable as USA Today/Suffolk, but Trump has made gains in this series, too. His strength has increased during impeachment. What, if anything, that will mean several months from now is anybody's guess. But my suspicion is that we'll all be off fighting over new controversies pretty quickly. And this level is stability amid wildly unstable news cycles is pretty wild:
Trump approval rating at 44.4 on the FiveThirtyEight tracker. For now, that puts him above his 44.3 percent standing from the day Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) December 16, 2019
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