Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Among Independents, Support for Trump Impeachment is Surging

by Nomad

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week, there's growing support among political independents for the impeachment for Donald Trump.  

To make matters worse for the president, overall support for impeachment has risen by three percentage points since just last week. Overall, 46% of Americans said they supported impeachment and 40% said they opposed it.
Support for impeachment was relatively steady among Republicans and Democrats over the past week but it surged among independents, a group that includes people who neither identify as Democrats nor Republicans and do not favor either party when they vote. Among independents, 45% said in the latest poll they supported impeachment and 32% said they opposed it, the strongest level of support recorded in more than a year.
For Republicans who have been shielding the president from oversight, the news could hardly be worse. The persuadable independent voter has been called the "difference maker" in the presidential election.
Even Trump campaign spokesman and Deputy Communications Director for the Republican National Committee, Rick Gorka has observed:
“It always comes down to who can convince the independent voter..That is how you win the election.”
But that reasoning also works in reverse: lose the independents and you could very easily lose an election.  

With that election looming, (and with Trump continuing to embarrass his own party) this latest news must sound worrisome for the GOP. The Republican party has banked all its hopes on a man whom the majority of Americans- including the all-important independent voters- now want to see impeached. 
For the GOP, there is no Plan B.