A majority of Americans want the Senate to hold a full impeachment trial, rather than “allowing voters to decide” the fate of President Donald Trump, according to a new LX/Morning Consult poll released Thursday morning. Younger Americans drove this result: No age groups were more in favor of a full trial than Generation Z and millennials.
The poll, conducted as House and Senate leaders tussle over what to do following the passage of two articles of impeachment, shows 55% of U.S. adults support a full trial of President Trump. Forty-five percent responded that they preferred to let voters decide the president's fate in the November election.
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The poll didn’t specify what a full impeachment trial meant – that was left to the interpretation of the respondents. Right now, Senate and House lawmakers are debating whether the trial should allow testimony from witnesses and new evidence, or it should be based on the evidence and testimony already presented in House hearings and reports.
Those in favor of a full impeachment trial skewed young. Generation Z respondents between the age of 18 and 22 - many of whom weren’t even born when President Bill Clinton was impeached - favored a full trial for President Trump by a 68% to 32% margin. Millennials between the age of 23 and 38 favored a full trial by a 62% to 38% margin.
Fifty-one percent of adults from Generation X (39-54) favored a full Senate trial, while Baby Boomers, 55 to 73 years old, were the only age group where fewer than half of respondents (49%) said they favored a full trial.
Race also played a factor. Just 49% of white respondents supported a full impeachment trial, compared to 77% of blacks and 69% of Hispanics.
There was a split among party lines as well, with 83% of Democrats supporting a full Senate trial and 77% of Republicans opposing it; independent voters favored a full trial by a 54-46 margin.
Only 23% of Republicans favored a full impeachment trial.
A previous NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from mid-December found that 90% of Republican respondents opposed Trump's impeachment and ouster -- indicating that some Republicans now want a trial because they believe the President will be acquitted.
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The January LX/Morning Consult poll of 2,200 U.S.adults, between the ages of 18 and 73, was conducted online Jan. 3-6. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 2 percentage points. Click here to see full poll results.
LX is NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations’ division new digital news brand and soon-to-launch over-the air and streaming network. LX, or local X, stands for the exponential possibilities of storytelling in our communities. For more information about LX, visit LX.com, subscribe on YouTube , and follow on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @NBCLX and #NBCLX.
Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company delivering insights on what people think in real time. By surveying tens of thousands across the globe every single day, Morning Consult is unmatched in scale and speed: It determines the true measure of what people think and how their decisions impact business, politics and the economy. Industry leaders rely on Morning Consult’s proprietary technology and analysis for real-time, intelligent data to transform information into a competitive advantage.
