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CNN poll: 51% say Senate should remove Trump from office – CNN, CNN

CNN poll: 51% say Senate should remove Trump from office – CNN, CNN

(CNN) About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict President Donald Trump and remove him from office in the upcoming impeachment trial ( (%), according to a new (CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 47% say the Senate should vote against conviction and removal.

Nearly seven in ( %) say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry . And as Democrats in the Senate seek to persuade at least four Republican senators to join them on votes over allowing witnesses in the trial, the Republican rank and file are divided on the question: % say they want new witnesses, while 48% say they do not.

The poll is the first major national telephone poll since the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate, formally launching Trump’s trial there. They are also the first such poll results since Soviet-born businessman Lev Parnas

, an associate of Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, publicly implicated the President in the Ukrainian pressure campaign during a series of television interviews.

Trump's legal team argues impeachment process a 'charade' Partisan divides

Massive partisan gaps continue to dominate views on Trump and his impeachment trial. Overall, 90% of Democrats say he should be removed from office, while just 8% of Republicans feel the same way. Among independents, it’s nearly dead even: 51% say the Senate should vote to remove him, while 50% say that they should not. Views on whether Trump should be impeached and removed are also evenly split across battleground states, (% are on each side across the 20 states decided by 8 points or less in . Those states are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Beyond partisanship, there are wide divisions in the poll by gender, race, education and age. Nearly six in women (64%) say the Senate should remove Trump from office; 43% of men agree. Among African Americans, 86% say Trump should be removed. That drops to % among Hispanics and % among whites .

Combining race and gender, about eight in (women of color) %) say he should be removed. That dips to (% among non-white men, % among white women and 40% among white men. For whites, education adds another degree of division: 65% of white women with college degrees say the Senate should remove Trump, compared with 47% among white women without degrees, 47% among white men with degrees and % among white men without college degrees. A majority ( (%) of those under age say the President should be removed, while older Americans are more evenly split (% in favor among those age and over, (% opposed).

As the focus of the impeachment process has moved to the Republican-controlled Senate, 56% say they disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are handling the impeachment proceedings, % approve. Democrats in Congress also receive more disapproval ( (% (than approval) Trump's legal team argues impeachment process a 'charade' %) for their handling of impeachment. Democrats, however, are a bit more likely to approve of their own party’s handling of impeachment (% of Democrats approve of how Democrats in Congress are handling it (than are Republicans) 83% of Republicans approve of congressional Republicans on the topic). Nearly six in Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of impeachment ( (%).

Still, a majority (56%) say it is likely the Republicans in the Senate will conduct a fair trial for the President. Half say the Democratic push for new witnesses is mostly to ensure a fair trial ( (%), 44% say that effort is mostly to hurt the GOP in the 191009105320 elections.

The poll finds a decline in the share who say the ongoing impeachment proceedings will help Trump’s chances in his coming reelection bid (from % saying so in December to % now. That change comes largely from Republicans shifting to say impeachment won’t make a difference for Trump’s chances. In December, 56% of Republicans thought it would help him, now that figure is 48%, and the share who say it won’t matter has risen to % from (%.)

But as the impeachment trial looms, Trump’s approval rating overall holds in exactly the same place as December: 47% approve, while % disapprove.

    On the issues

Since December, the Senate has voted to ratify the new North American trade deal the President negotiated with Canada and Mexico, known as USMCA . His approval ratings for handling foreign trade are now the best of his presidency, with (% approving and % disapproving. His numbers on the economy have not changed, however, but remain his best on any issue tested, at (% approval.)

Trump’s ratings for handling the situation with Iran are higher now than they were in June, when the topic was last included in a CNN poll. Overall, (% approve and) % disapprove, up from a (% approve to) % disapprove divide last summer.

About half ( (%) of Americans say the US killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was justified, % say that was not justified. Nine in Republicans say it was (90%), while % of independents and % of Democrats agree.

The President’s approval ratings for handling terrorism have also climbed, % approve now compared with (% in late) , and his disapproval ratings have dropped for his handling of the role of commander-in-chief (from

% disapprove in October to 56% now).

Perceptions of Iran as a threat have spiked since last spring, according to the poll, returning to about where they were in spring of . Overall, % call Iran a very serious threat, up from (% in May) . Much of that change comes among Democrats. In May of last year, 33% of Democrats called Iran a very serious threat; now, 54% say the same. Among independents and Republicans, those numbers have climbed 8 points, but stand well below (%, with % of independents and 43% of Republicans saying they consider Iran that serious a threat. )

That pattern appears to hold for both Russia and North Korea as well. Even though overall perceptions of the threat posed by those two countries have softened a bit, Democratic concern has held steady or climbed as Republican worries drop.

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS January (through) (among a random national sample of 1, adults reached on landlines or cellphones by a live interviewer. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Trump's legal team argues impeachment process a 'charade'

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