Back in November and December when Democrats were conducting their public impeachment inquiry hearings against President Trump, a number of polls were released showing how their efforts were backfiring among independent voters and even some Democratic voters.
After Trump’s acquittal last month, polls indicated Trump was in even better shape politically than he was when the impeachment inquiry started, showing a remarkable resiliency that even some Democrats and NeverTrumpers reluctantly admitted to.
Two weeks later, Gallup conducted two weeks of polling Republican, Democratic, and independent voters on where they stood on members of Congress and President Trump in the aftermath of his impeachment and acquittal. The results, released today, showed that contrary to how Gallup’s polls of the public’s feelings about Congress typically go, Republican approval ratings were now higher than Democratic approval ratings:
The Gallup poll found that since October, shortly after Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry, the approval rating for Republicans in the Gallup poll has gone up 6 points, from 34 percent to 40 percent. Democrats saw their approval rating fall over the same period from 38 percent to 35 percent.
The poll also found that the disapproval ratings for Democrats had gone up:
The disapproval rating in the Gallup poll for Democrats rose from 57 percent to 62 percent.
The findings are also significant — since Gallup began polling of lawmakers in 1999, Democrats have tended to have a higher approval rating than Republicans.
Gallup also noted that Trump’s favorability numbers have gone up as well:
Just as the public’s assessments of congressional Republicans appear to have benefited from Trump’s impeachment, so too has Trump. In Januaryand February, the president’s job approval rating rose to his personal best of 49%; it remains elevated from where it was before his impeachment. Likewise, Trump’s favorability rating, which was 41% in October, reached 48% in January and is currently 46%, including 89% favorable among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
Gallup attributed the rise in polling numbers for both Congressional Republicans and Trump to Republicans and “Republican leaners'” who were pleased with how they handled the impeachment inquiry and the Senate trial.
What this means is that rather than leading to Trump fatigue among his core voters, impeachment has galvanized the Republican base and the independent voters who lean Republican which is not good news for Democrats who have tried to chip away at his support since day one.
This poll is not an outlier, either, as it basically confirms those prior polls I mentioned earlier from other polling outfits as to where Republicans and other voters who lean Republican stood (and still stand) on Trump, Republicans in Congress, and Democratic impeachment efforts.
To be sure, there’s still a long time to go between now and November, but for a president and a party who have been under a constant barrage from Democrats, Never Trumpers, and their media allies with no end in sight, to be in such a good political shape in the aftermath is pretty impressive.