Two weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, support for the effort among the American people has reached 58 percent, according to a Washington Post–Schar School poll released Tuesday. That’s up 20 points from early July, when 38 percent of Americans said the House should have already started impeachment proceedings.
What’s changed in the last three months? For starters, Trump gave his opponents a new reason to support impeachment by attempting to get Ukraine, and now China, to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The poll shows that 62 percent of Americans think that request was inappropriate, while 32 percent say it was fine. Naturally, the vast majority of Democrats had a problem with Trump asking for Ukraine’s help to tarnish the Bidens. But the number of independents who thought the request was inappropriate was high too, at 63 percent. One-third of Republicans also said Trump messed up.
In the three months since the July poll, support for an impeachment inquiry has jumped by at least 20 points among Democrats (up 25 percent), Republicans (up 21 percent), and independents (up 20 percent).
The number of Americans who already support removing Trump from office, even before the inquiry is really rolling, is already at 49 percent. Only 6 percent believe the impeachment proceedings should have begun but are not yet ready to remove Trump.
The poll’s breakdown along party lines reveals some eye-catching results. For example, nearly 30 percent of Republicans support the inquiry, along with 57 percent of independents. And a fifth of Republicans already support Trump’s removal.
