Trump impeachment: Nearly half of voters in favour of president’s removal from office, polls show

Two new surveys make bleak reading for the West Wing exactly one year away from 2020 election

With exactly one year to go until the 2020 US presidential election, almost half of American voters are in favour of impeaching Donald Trump and removing him from office.

That’s according to two new polls published on Sunday, both of which find 49 per cent of the electorate backing that the House impeachment inquiry probing Mr Trump’s alleged attempt to extort political favours from Ukraine removes him from office.

The president has been accused by an anonymous CIA whistleblower of threatening to withhold almost $400m (£358m) in military aid from the Eastern European state unless president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to open a corruption investigation into his domestic political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 49 per cent saying they believed the president should be impeached and ousted and 46 per cent disagreeing. That’s a rise of six per cent in favour of the House Democrats’ ongoing investigation month-on-month.

Meanwhile, a Fox News poll came to exactly the same outcome, which should sound alarm bells at the White House given that the network is notoriously partisan, its pundits often bending over backwards to support and excuse the president.

However, Fox’s findings are actually down two per cent on the start of October when 51 per cent were in favour, indicating a slight bump in approval among the channel’s viewers, possibly attributable to Mr Trump’s triumphant announcement of the killing of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria on 27 October.

As the House inquiry continues to interview senior members of the US diplomatic corps behind closed doors to find out what exactly transpired between the administration and Ukraine following Zelensky’s inauguration in May, the president insists his call with Kiev on 25 July was “perfect” and that the investigation is just the latest Washington “Witch Hunt” invented by his enemies to see him removed from office.

“The Whistleblower got it sooo wrong that HE must come forward,” Mr Trump said in his latest tweet on the subject on Sunday. “The Fake News Media knows who he is but, being an arm of the Democrat Party, don’t want to reveal him because there would be hell to pay. Reveal the Whistleblower and end the Impeachment Hoax!”

The NBC/WSJ poll also finds 53 per cent disapproving of the president’s job performance overall, compared to 45 per cent in favour, and both Mr Biden and Elizabeth Warren beating him at the ballot box.

But it’s not all bad news for Mr Trump. The survey does find 50 per cent of respondents approving of his stewardship of the US economy and 91 per cent of Republicans opposed to the impeachment inquiry in principle, meaning his GOP support base remains solid even as 89 per cent of Democrats and independents are in favour.

However the Fox poll will make for particularly grim reading in the West Wing.

In addition to the 49 per cent of respondents backing his removal from office, six in 10 believe say they believe Mr Trump did pressure Mr Zelensky to investigate his political opponents.

Only 39 per cent of those questioned said they considered the impeachment inquiry “bogus”, while 57 per cent of those who said they disapprove of the investigation admitted their opinion could be swayed should new evidence come to light.

The depositions offered so far to the House panel offered by the likes of ex-White House adviser Fiona Hill, acting US ambassador to the Ukraine Bill Taylor and the National Security Council’s Russia expert Lt Col Alexander Vindman have led to a steady drip-feed of damning revelations.