Big Jump in State Support for Impeachment
Marquette Poll finds 46% of those surveyed now back inquiry, up from 29% in April.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
Wisconsin residents are narrowly divided on holding impeachment hearings for President Donald Trump, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Marquette University Law School.
The poll, conducted between Oct. 13 and Oct. 17, found 49 percent of those surveyed don’t believe there is sufficient reason to hold impeachment hearings. Forty-six percent believe there is sufficient reason.
During a public presentation of the findings, poll director Charles Franklin noted support for the hearings has increased in recent months. In an April poll from Marquette, only 29 percent believed there was sufficient reason to hold the hearings.
“We have a little history with this question because we asked it during the Mueller investigation during January and April, and what you can see is there’s been a big upturn in the belief that hearings are now justified,” Franklin said. “Opinion has changed substantially.”
When asked if the president should be impeached and removed from office, 51 percent of those surveyed said he shouldn’t be. Forty-four percent support impeachment and removal.
In context, former President Barack Obama’s final approval rating, as measured by the Marquette poll in October 2016, was 52 percent, with a disapproval rating of 44 percent.
Franklin noted that while 51 percent of those surveyed in the latest poll support how Trump has handled the national economy, only 25 percent believe the economy will improve in the next year.
The poll director noted that Wisconsinites’ economic outlook has dimmed drastically this year, especially in comparison to recent years.
“There’s trade uncertainty, there’s the stock market volatility,” Franklin said. “It does seem undeniable that 2019, throughout the whole year, produced more anxiety and more skepticism about the next year than we had seen in the previous six years of polling.”
Three Democrats Lead Trump In Presidential Race Poll
The poll also asked Wisconsin residents to weigh in on the status of the presidential race, roughly one year out from Election Day.
According to the poll, three Democratic presidential candidates are leading President Trump in the state.
The results found former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren all defeating the president in head-to-head matchups.
Biden led Trump 50 percent to 44 percent, Sanders led 48 percent to 46 percent and Warren led 47 percent to 46 percent.
Bipartisan Support For State Gun Law Changes
Just two days after Gov. Tony Evers called a special session of the state Legislature to address gun violence, the poll found bipartisan support among Wisconsin residents for two concepts the governor is urging the Legislature to put into state law.
Evers is calling on the GOP-controlled state Senate and Assembly to approve expanding background checks to private sales and gun shows. He is also pushing for a red-flag law that would allow gun ownership rights to be temporarily revoked from individuals deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
GOP leaders have said they don’t support either proposal.
In Wednesday’s presentation, Franklin shed more light on public perceptions of the proposals, finding wide bipartisan support for both.
An August Marquette poll found 80 percent of all individuals surveyed, regardless of political party, support making private sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. Eighty-one percent supported the red-flag law.
October’s presentation broke those numbers into party affiliation, finding 72 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats support the expanded background checks and 74 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Democrats support the red-flag laws.
Listen to the WPR report here.
Poll: Dramatic Uptick in Impeachment Support Leaves Wisconsin Voters Almost Evenly Split was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
More about the Impeachment of President Trump
- Op Ed: The Courage of Mitt Romney - Bill Kaplan - Feb 10th, 2020
- In Trump Acquittal, Wisconsin Legislators Divided - Robin Bravender and Ruth Conniff - Feb 6th, 2020
- Pocan: ‘A Cover-Up That Will Haunt our Democracy’ - U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan - Feb 5th, 2020
- Johnson Statement On Acquittal Votes - U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson - Feb 5th, 2020
- Johnson Votes to Conclude Impeachment Proceedings - U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson - Feb 3rd, 2020
- Call Bolton to Testify, Baldwin Urges - Erik Gunn - Jan 29th, 2020
- “Gut Check Time” For Senators, Baldwin Says - Shawn Johnson - Jan 28th, 2020
- Data Wonk: Measuring Republican Views on Impeachment - Bruce Thompson - Jan 2nd, 2020
- Data Wonk: Rep. Sensenbrenner’s Disappointing Column - Bruce Thompson - Dec 26th, 2019
- Pocan: ‘A Vote That Sets the Precedent for All Future Presidents’ - U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan - Dec 18th, 2019
Read more about Impeachment of President Trump here
The historian T.W. Maitland once said, “We should always beware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future.” Before celebrating some marginal moves in a poll on impeachment, we should think about what this is all going to look like a decade or more from now. How did a pathologically lying criminal and sexual predator end up as president of the United States? How did he capture one of the two main political parties in the world’s greatest democracy? And why, despite increasingly damning evidence of criminality, corruption and the betrayal of his oath of office, did more than 1/3 of the population, virtually all white, stick with him despite the following:
A pattern of corruption, lying, nepotism and vulgarity unprecedented in American history, including, most recently, reference to those in his own party who oppose him as “human scum.”
A stated position that he is above the law, along with actions that systematically undermine the other branches of government, except for those he controls, and of a free press; in the process, creating a national propaganda network (Fox News and its fascist commentators, Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham), which has hardened the false beliefs among the 35% in white victimization, a “Deep State,” and that everything that isn’t pro-Trump propaganda is “fake news.”
Gutted environmental regulations and betrayed future generations by not only not taking action in the face of the climate crisis, but actually leading an administration of people committed to making it worse by serving as shills for the fossil fuel industry.
Fanning hatreds among groups in ways that pose a grave danger to civil peace, in particular by telling white people that they are the victims in American society, and, by doing so, justifying for them support for actions such as the caging of children and the destruction of families that don’t look like the base. Making hatred of “liberals” acceptable, another constant theme on the Fox News/Trump propaganda network, with a subtext that violence against them would be justified and that liberal electoral wins are illegitimate.
With his congressional allies, passing a tax bill that reinforces our world class inequality and threatens a permanent recession with deficits so enormous that there may be no way to spend our way out of it.
Betrays our allies and cozies up to autocracies, criminal regimes and dictators, most notably Russia, for which the charge that he is a Russian agent becomes less and less far-fetched; most recently, the betrayal of our Kurdish allies in a manner that has shamed our military and our nation, showing beyond doubt that he is unfit to be he commander-in-chief and that the United States cannot be trusted.
Without scapegoats, Trump would be nothing. It is the tie that binds him to his followers and lets them believe the lies that they want to believe. They like his approach. In his own words, “I love to get even. Go for the jugular…If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard.”
The hard question in the future may be to try to answer the following about his supporters: Do the opponents of this regime have a responsibility to show empathy for people who have supported it and who have shown absolutely no empathy for anyone who doesn’t look or think like them? The correct answer is “yes.” The realistic answer is likely to be far different.