Fifty-two percent of U.S. adults surveyed ahead of the impeachment trial favor the Senate convicting former President Trump, a Gallup poll released Monday indicated.
Democrats hope to present an emotional case against the former commander-in-chief as the Senate impeachment trial, slated to kick off on Tuesday, begins. According to the survey, 52 percent of U.S. adults favor senators convicting Trump, compared to 45 percent who want lawmakers to vote against convicting. Three percent remain uncertain.
In comparison, a slim majority, 51 percent, did not want the Senate to convict Trump during the first impeachment trial, which occurred early last year. Forty-six percent said otherwise. The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump in the first impeachment trial after Democrats accused him of withholding aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into the Bidens.
This time, the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents, 89 percent, support a conviction in the Senate compared to 10 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who desire the same.
The Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump one week after the Capitol riot for “incitement of insurrection.” Ten Republicans joined Democrats in their pro-impeachment vote, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has since faced strong political backlash, quickly losing popularity in her state. However, the House Republican Conference chair survived an effort to oust her from her leadership position, 145 Republicans voting to keep her, 61 voting to oust her, and one voting present.
Cheney now says there is a “massive criminal investigation underway” into Trump’s alleged role in the January 6 riot.
“If I was in the Senate, I would listen to the evidence,” she told Fox News Sunday when asked if she would vote to convict Trump if she were in the position to do so.
“I think that is the role the Senate has as jurors. I would also point out that the Senate trial is a snapshot. There’s a massive criminal investigation underway. There will be a massive criminal investigation of everything that happened on January 6 and in the days before,” she continued.
“There are a lot of questions that have to be answered, and there will be many, many criminal investigations looking at every aspect of this and everyone who was involved, as there should be,” she said, adding that they have “never seen that kind of assault by a president of the United States on another branch of government, and that can never happen again.”
Notably, Trump did not call for violence or lawlessness during his speech earlier in the day, and he repeatedly called for peace as rioters stormed the Capitol building.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has declared the trial “dead on arrival” after 45 Republicans questioned the constitutionality of proceeding, given Trump’s status as a former president.
“We put forward a motion that said that basically, you can’t impeach a private individual,” he said during an appearance on Fox News Primetime last month.
“So, we put this issue forward, but the most important takeaway from the issue is they don’t have the votes to convict. We have 45 people; 45 Republican senators say that the whole — the whole charade is unconstitutional,” he explained, adding, “It means that impeachment — the trial is dead on arrival.”
The Gallup survey, taken January 21 to February 2 among 906 adult respondents in the U.S., has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
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