A narrow majority of Americans say they support the sentencing of former President Donald Trump in the Senate in his impeachment trial, which begins Tuesday.
Fifty-two percent of people questioned in a new Gallup poll want Trump to be convicted, with 45% saying that senators should absolve the former president. There was a similar response in an ABC News / IPSOS poll released on Sunday, with 56% supporting the conviction and 43% supporting acquittal.
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These figures are in line with two national surveys released last week. Half of all Americans wanted Trump to be sentenced, and 45% asked for absolution in a Quinnipiac University poll, and a Marist national poll showed that 50% supported the sentencing and 41% asked lawmakers to absolve Trump.
The House of Representatives last month accused the then president on charges of inciting the January 6 uprising on the US Capitol by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, were killed during the attack on the building, which occurred while Congress certified President Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump. The impeachment was supported by all 222 Democrats in the chamber, as well as by 10 Republicans, with 197 Republican Party representatives voting against the impeachment.
ARCHIVE – On this January 6, 2021, archival photo protesters loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on the Capitol in Washington. Arguments begin Tuesday, February 9, at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on allegations that he incited the violent crowd that invaded the United States Capitol on January 6. (AP Photo / John Minchillo, Archive)
Tuesday’s trial begins with four hours of debate by the 100 senators over whether it is a former president’s constitutional impeachment. In a recent Senate vote, 45 of the 50 House Republicans voted against the trial, saying it was unconstitutional. Only five Senate Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in rejecting the idea that a former president could not be tried for impeachment. That was a great indicator that Trump’s conviction in the Senate trial – which needs 67 votes – would probably be insufficient.
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Trump’s second impeachment trial – the first in American history – comes a year after his first trial.
“The public is a little more in favor of Trump’s sentencing now than in January 2020, just before his first Senate trial, after he was stopped by withholding Congressionally approved foreign aid to Ukraine to secure a political favor and for obstructing Congress in its investigation of the matter “, Gallup highlights in his research. “At that point, 46% said they were in favor of the conviction and 51% were not.”
The then president was acquitted at the first trial.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, Wednesday, January 20, 2021. (AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The 56-43% support for conviction for acquittal in the new ABC News / IPSOS poll is also a shift from 47% support for conviction and 49% support for acquittal in an ABC News / Washington Post poll conducted just before the trial of 2020.
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All of the most recent research points to a broad party split over the trial.
Eighty-nine percent of Democrats polled in the Gallup poll support the sentencing, with 88% of Republicans supporting absolution. Independent by a 54% -43% margin conviction. It is a similar story in the ABC News / IPSOS poll, with 92% of Democrats, but only 15% of Republicans supporting the sentencing. Independent by a sentence supported by a 54% -45% margin on acquittal.
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The Gallup survey was conducted from January 21 to February. 2, with the ABC News / IPSOS survey conducted from 5 to 6 February.