Reuters/Ipsos Core Political Survey: Impeachment Tracker (01/15/2020)

Washington, DC, January 15, 2020 —  American public opinion on the possible removal of President Donald Trump from his office remains unchanged since the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives in December. Approximately 2 in 5 Americans believe that the president should be removed from office (45%), a third believe all charges against the president should be dismissed (31%), and 14% think that Trump should face censure, but not removal from office. Perhaps unsurprisingly, for Republican registered voters, only 9% believe the president should be removed from office, and almost three-quarters feel the charges against him should be dismissed (72%). Democratic registered voters feel the opposite way – 74% say he should be removed from office, and only 6% think President Trump should be cleared of the charges against him.  

Overall, half of Americans believe that Trump is guilty of the charges that the House has brought against him. A majority (55%) say the president is guilty of abusing his office, and a similar number say he is guilty of obstructing Congress (54%). Democratic registered voters are much more likely to believe he is guilty of both charges (85% and 86% respectively) than their Republican counterparts (20% and 17% respectively).  

About 2 in 5 Americans approve of how the House of Representatives is handling impeaching President Trump (39%), while 48% do not. Two-thirds of Democratic registered voters approve of how Congress has handled the matter (63%), compared to only 14% of Republican registered voters. With regards to how the president himself is handling the impeachment process, 36% of Americans approve, including 12% of Democratic registered voters and 74% of Republican registered voters.   

Like views on impeachment, the president’s approval rating has also remained largely unchanged. Among all Americans, 39% approve of the president, and 56% do not. A majority of Republican registered voters approve of President Trump’s performance in office (83%). By contrast, this figure falls to just 11% among Democratic registered voters. When it comes to specific issues, like Iran, 42% of Americans approve of his handling of the situation, up 4 points since last week (38%).  

Americans are most likely to consider healthcare to be the biggest problem facing the country (19%), followed by the economy and jobs (16%) and immigration (10%). While concern about war and foreign conflicts is lower than last week (13%), at 8% it is six percentage points higher than our last poll before news of confrontation with Iran started in early January (2%). Democratic registered voters are even more likely than the general public to be worried about healthcare (27%). They also see the environment (13%) and the economy and jobs (12%) as top issues. Among Republican registered voters, the top issues are immigration (20%), the economy and jobs (16%), and morality (13%).  

Most Americans feel the country is going in the wrong direction (57%), compared to the third that think it is headed the right way (30%). Democratic registered voters are even less optimistic, with 4 in 5 believing it is going off on the wrong track (81%) and only 11% saying it is going in the right direction. For Republican registered voters, two-thirds (62%) believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared to a third (30%) who feel it is off on the wrong track.  

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between January 13-14, 2020 on behalf of Thomson Reuters. For this survey, a sample of 1,119 adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 450 Democratic registered voters, 350 Republican registered voters, and 89 independent registered voters. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval ± 3.7 percentage points for all registered voters, ± 5.3 percentage points Democratic registered voters, ± 6.0 percentage points for Republican registered voters, ± 11.8 percentage points for independent registered voters.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]

Kate Silverstein
Media Relations, US
Public Affairs
+1 718 755-8829
[email protected]

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