ABC News/Ipsos Poll: Impact of the First Days of Impeachment Hearings on American Public Opinion
Most Americans are following impeachment proceedings closely; about half feel the President should be removed from office
Washington, DC, November 18th, 2019 - New American public opinion polling from ABC News and Ipsos finds that most of the American public is following the impeachment inquiry hearings about President Trump, but opinion continues to be divided on if he should be removed from office.
In this survey conducted on Saturday & Sunday, November 16-17, on the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans say they are following the hearings very or somewhat closely. Additionally, 51% of Americans say that “President Trump’s actions were wrong and he should be impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.” Nineteen percent of Americans say President Trump’s actions were wrong but he should not be removed from office and 25% say President Trump did nothing wrong.
A small plurality (32%) of Americans say their positions on impeaching President Trump were established before the Ukraine scandal erupted into public consciousness. However most Americans (67%) say they have decided on their position in the wake of the first reporting on Ukraine in September with one in five (21%) saying their decision has come after last week’s public hearings.
About the Study
This ABC News/Ipsos Poll was conducted November 16 to 17, 2019 by Ipsos KnowledgePanel® – a division of Ipsos. This poll is based on a nationally-representative probability sample of 506 general population adults age 18 or older.
The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, which is the largest and most well-established online panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in these households are invited to join and participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those potential panel members who do not already have internet access, Ipsos provides a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methods, samples from KnowledgePanel cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and provide fully representative online samples to the research community.
The study was conducted in both English and Spanish. The data were weighted to adjust for gender by age, race, education, Census region, metropolitan status, household income, and party identification. The demographic benchmarks came from the 2019 March supplement of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS). Party ID benchmarks are from recent ABC News/Washington Post telephone polls. The weighting categories were as follows:
- Gender (Male/Female) by Age (18–29, 30–44, 45–59, and 60+)
- Race/Hispanic Ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other or 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
- Education (Less than High School, High School graduate, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
- Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
- Metropolitan status (Metro, non-Metro)
- Household Income (Under $25,000, $25,000-$49,999, $50,000-$74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,999, $150,000+)
- Party ID (Democrat, Republican, Independent, Other/None)
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.22. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on sub-samples. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.
About Ipsos
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Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. We serve more than 5000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.
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