By Glynn Wilson –
A solid majority of 58 percent of American voters say former president Donald Trump should be banned from seeking public office ever again, according to the latest Morning Consult poll. And 54 percent say he should be convicted in the U.S. Senate on the House’s charge that he incited an insurrection.
Majority support for Trump’s conviction has not wavered in the weeks since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that sparked his second impeachment, even as Republican senators appear to be willing to vote soon to acquit the 45th president for a second time.
Still, 39 percent of voters say they would disapprove of Trump’s conviction, and roughly 3 in 4 Republicans said Trump should not be convicted or be barred from running for elected office in the future.
Backing for Trump’s conviction over the past month has been consistently higher than polls conducted ahead of Trump’s January 2020 impeachment trial. In the final poll before that first trial began last year, 49 percent of voters said they would approve if the Senate removed Trump from office over his alleged effort to pressure the Ukranian government to investigate his domestic political rivals, according Morning Consult polls.
“While support for conviction among Democrats and independent voters roughly matches the numbers from last year’s impeachment surveys,” they say, “Republican voters are slightly more likely to back Trump’s removal this time around, 19 percent to 13 percent, reflecting Trump’s slightly dampened favorability and approval ratings among the base since his campaign against the 2020 election results ended with the violent siege of the Capitol by some of his supporters.”
House Democratic impeachment managers are set to enter the Senate chamber this week to lay out their arguments against the president. Unlike last year’s trial, which relied on intense interviews and documents, this year’s trial is set to focus on public comments from the president during his campaign against the 2020 election results that were echoed by Capitol rioters.
Democrats have sought Trump’s on-the-record testimony in his own defense, though that was quickly rejected by the president’s legal team. The majority of voters (56 percent) said the former president should testify about his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, including 4 in 5 Democrats and a third of Republicans.
“Despite public support, the question is likely moot — it would require the Senate to first convict Trump, a vote that requires a two-thirds majority,” according to Morning Consult.
According to tallies from The Washington Post and The New York Times, Trump likely has the votes he needs to be acquitted in the Senate trial, as nearly all of the chamber’s 50 Republicans have indicated that they will not support Trump’s conviction. Most Republican senators have cited arguments, also touted by Trump’s lawyers, that the whole process is unconstitutional since Trump has now left office.
They survey of 1,986 registered voters conducted Feb. 5-7 had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
