The latest polls show the public turning against the Democrats’ attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office. The party’s presidential field looks weaker by the day. Trump’s approval rating is tied with what President Barack Obama’s was at the same point in his first term. And the economy keeps chugging along. Wasn’t Trump supposed to be packing his bags by now?
Start with the impeachment polls. Whatever hopes Democrats had of removing Trump from office, or even significantly damaging his reelection hopes, appear to be fading – a fact even the mainstream media is having to admit.
The Hill reported on Sunday that, “New public opinion polls are moving against Democrats on impeachment as independents sour on the House inquiry and increasingly express opposition to the hearings that have consumed Washington in recent weeks.”
It notes that three polls taken last week showed a sharp drop in support for impeachment among independents. Emerson University, for example, found the share of independents who say they back Trump’s impeachment dropping from 48% in October down to 34% now.
The FiveThirtyEight average of polls shows that 41% of independents approve of impeachment, down from 48% a few weeks ago.
The new data, the Hill reports, “comes as a surprise to Democrats.”
Vanity Fair ran a piece a couple days ago headlined: “’It Is Hard to Read This as Anything But a Warning’: New Polling Suggest Democrats’ Impeachment Push Could Alienate Key Voters.”
It looked at data from a Politico/Morning Consult poll and found that “independents see impeachment as a continuation of the partisan bickering and media excess that began even before his inauguration.”
And independents see impeachment as more important to politicians and the media than to them, by huge margins of 62% to 22% and 61% to 23%, respectively.
It’s not that Trump has been masterful in his own defense as much as independent-minded voters haven’t been swayed into thinking that hearsay, speculation and disdain of Trump are sufficient reasons to overturn a presidential election.
Then there’s the current Gallup poll, which shows Trump’s approval rating at 43%. That is exactly where Obama’s was at this point in his presidency. And Obama’s approval rating came despite the fact that he had a fawning media at his feet.
Richer In Quantity Than Quality
While the impeachment train sputters, the Democratic presidential field continues to under-perform and weaken. Putative front-runner Joe Biden continues to flash warning signs that he’s just too old and out of touch to be running for president. The latest embarrassment: He couldn’t remember the names of the four women he said he’d consider to be his running mate.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign has been in trouble ever since she revealed how she’d pay for her Medicare for All plan, which after blowing up in her face forced her to backpedal on the whole thing. She also suffered a public relations blow when school choice advocates interrupted her rally in Atlanta, where she falsely claimed that her kids went to public school.
Just how weak the Democrats’ lineup is came into high relief when both Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick decided to enter the race just months before the Iowa caucuses. The fact that both want to position themselves as moderates means they see Biden as a deeply troubled front-runner.
As the New York Times put it, their entry at the 11th hour “highlighted the growing anxiety among some Democrats that the 18-person field is more rich in quantity than quality. “
Anything can happen over the next 11 months, of course, but if Democrats continue to advertise to the public that they are too old, too far left, too driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome, and too out of touch with the concerns of the public, Trump could end up winning reelection by a landslide.
— Written by John Merline
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