Poll: Support for impeachment inquiry ticks down

Lawmakers in the House on Tuesday will kick off a crucial, marathon week of testimony in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

But as investigators look to continue making their case for impeachment to the public, support for the inquiry has ticked down over the past week, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The survey, which has tracked support and opposition for the inquiry each week, found that support for the investigation inched down 2 points — to 48 percent from 50 percent — while opposition to the inquiry ticked up 3 points — to 45 percent from 42 percent.

POLITICO and Morning Consult surveyed registered voters beginning after the second public hearing of the impeachment inquiry, and the poll results may indicate that support for the inquiry has reached its peak after steadily building over the past several months. The results were largely driven by independent voters, among whom support dropped by 7 points over the past week.

"Voter opposition to the impeachment inquiry is at its highest point since Morning Consult and POLITICO began tracking the issue," said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult's vice president. "A key driver for this shift appears to be independents. Today, 47 percent of independents oppose the impeachment inquiry, compared to 37 percent who said the same one week ago."

But heading into the second week of public proceedings, during which House lawmakers are squeezing nine witnesses into three days of hearings, slim pluralities of voters still support the House voting to impeach Trump (48-44 percent) and the Senate voting to remove him from office (47-42 percent).

Respondents who said they're following media coverage of the investigation, 57 percent, and those who said they've watched the public hearings thus far, 55 percent, were considerably more likely to support impeachment in the House. That could account for some of the uptick in opposition by independents — just over half said they aren't following media coverage of the inquiry, with 43 percent copping to not watching the public hearings at all.

While a plurality continues to support the inquiry overall, they also remain stable in their opposition to Democrats' handling of the inquiry, 46 percent to 42 percent.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted online from Nov. 15-17 among a national sample of 1,994 registered voters. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents: Toplines | Crosstabs