SALT LAKE CITY — Nearly half of Utahns say that President Donald Trump should be allowed to finish out his term, a new poll shows, but a growing number believe Congress has enough evidence to begin impeachment proceedings right away.
In a poll conducted by Y2 Analytics for UtahPolicy.com, 47% of respondents said Congress should not hold impeachment hearings and should allow the president to finish his term, while 34% said there is enough evidence for Congress to move forward with impeachment hearings now.
About one in five respondents — 19% — were in favor of a continued investigation to see if there is enough evidence to hold impeachment hearings in the future. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus about three percentage points.
While the share of Utahns who believe there is enough evidence to start impeachment proceedings has grown over an eventful past two months from 29% to 34%, according to a similar poll from August, the portion of respondents opposed to impeachment has held steady at just under half. The most recent poll was conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 8, in the days immediately after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced a formal impeachment inquiry.
That a plurality of Utahns said they didn’t want to see Trump impeached isn’t surprising in one of the most Republican states in the country. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to widespread support for, or approval of, the president.
“I think that most Utahns are cautious about things like this. This is a major constitutional action Congress would be taking. I think that people are absolutely correct to be careful.” — Jeff Merchant, Utah Democratic Party chairman
The poll doesn’t address the gray area of discipline between impeachment and no action whatsoever, UtahPolicy.com publisher LaVarr Webb pointed out — meaning that some respondents may not want to see the president removed from office, but may be in favor of other, lesser forms of discipline.
“I do think that Trump is not as popular in Utah as he is in many Republican states,” Webb said. “But I think that there are a lot of people who don’t especially like Trump, but they don’t think that what he has done deserves being removed from office.”
In another UtahPolicy.com and Y2A poll published in July, 53% of registered voters surveyed said they disapproved of Trump’s job performance, including 44% who expressed strong disapproval.
The partisan nature of the flurry of impeachment rhetoric in Washington, D.C., may also be a turn-off for some Utah conservatives, even those who don’t particularly care for the president, Webb suggested.
“The fact that it is quite partisan, I think, is another reason why a lot of Utahns think that voting a year from now in November would be a better way to express whether they want Trump to continue or not,” Webb said.
One Utah politician, one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics, has gone against the partisan grain in Washington. Sen. Mitt Romney has criticized Trump over his phone call with the president of Ukraine, though he said Thursday that he is withholding judgment on whether the president committed an impeachable or removable offense.
Rep. Ben McAdams, the lone Democrat in Utah’s congressional delegation, had stayed silent on the issue of impeachment until Oct. 4, when he publicly endorsed the inquiry launched by Pelosi. McAdams was one of just 10 Democrats who had not yet endorsed the inquiry at the time.
Friday’s poll comes on the heels of a rally near McAdams’ office in West Jordan on Wednesday organized by the local Trump Victory campaign, at which supporters of the impeachment inquiry — including some self-described conservatives — outnumbered supporters of the president.
Don Peay, the former head of Trump’s campaign in Utah, said he didn’t believe the results of the poll were indicative at all of the president’s chances at remaining in office, perhaps even for another term.
“Everybody I talk to across the country believes all these polls are mindless chatter and that Trump’s going to win in a landslide and he won’t be impeached,” Peay said.
Peay, who says he counts Trump as a friend, said voters who are “preoccupied with stupid Washington, D.C., games” should be focusing instead on global and domestic issues such as the economy, ISIS, and sex trafficking.
“There’s a lot of important things to be dealt with,” Peay said.
Jeff Merchant, Utah Democratic Party chairman, saw things differently.
“I don’t think there’s ever anything wrong with Congress engaging in its constitutional duty to be a fact-finder,” Merchant said. “I think that’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
In the meantime, Merchant said, the poll numbers suggest that Utahns may be relatively hesitant to go all-in on impeachment unless they believe sufficient facts have been found.
“I think that most Utahns are cautious about things like this,” Merchant said. “This is a major constitutional action Congress would be taking. I think that people are absolutely correct to be careful.”