To hear the mainstream media tell it, America is clamoring to impeach President Trump.
Not so in Iowa, one of the first states in the nation to hold caucuses in the 2020 presidential campaign.
“The most important issue for voters in Iowa in deciding for whom to vote for president is the economy at 33%, followed by healthcare at 19%, and social issues at 10%,” according to a new poll by Emerson. “Impeachment ranked seven out of nine at 6%, ahead of education at 5% and foreign policy at 3%.”
The issue, being pushed daily by Democrats in Washington, D.C., doesn’t even fare well among party members in Iowa. “Among Democrats, the most important issue is health care at 25%, followed by the economy at 17%, and the environment at 14%. The majority of Republicans (55%) identify the economy as the most important issue, followed by immigration at 14%. Independents are split between the economy (27%) and healthcare (24%).”
“The Democrats have some work to do in Iowa convincing voters that impeachment is a top priority of Congress; 67% of Democrats in Iowa support impeaching the president, but only 10% identify it as the most important issue in deciding their vote for president,” said Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson Polling.
Even when the parties are combined, impeachment is not embraced in Iowa, where residents take their politics seriously. The Emerson poll also found that a plurality of voters from all parties – 48% – oppose impeachment, while just 42% support it.
The poll also found that former Vice President Joe Biden is now tied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), both with 23%, followed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 16%, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dropping to fourth at 13%. All other candidates were at or below 5%. Trump would win in a head-to-head contest with two of the three top candidates.
“In hypothetical head to head matchups, Trump has a slight advantage over Warren and Biden: 51% to 49%, while Sanders carries a two point advantage over Trump with 51% to 49%,” the poll found.
Meanwhile in Washington, Democrat-led House committees are quickly moving ahead with impeachment. Three panels last week held closed-door hearings with current and former federal officials as part of the move.
Steve Bannon, a former top strategist for Trump, said House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will lead Democrats to impeach the president by early December.
“This is serious. As sure as the turning of the earth, he is going to be impeached by Pelosi in the next six weeks,” Bannon told the New York Post. “Nancy Pelosi is very focused.”
The findings of the new poll contrast with another recent survey. The latest Quinnipiac University poll found that that 51% of voters nationwide support the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump, while 45% disapprove of it.
Public opinion on whether Trump should be impeached remains mixed, but Americans now lean slightly more in favor of impeachment and removal from office compared with where they stood in June.
Currently, 52% say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 46% say he should not be. This is roughly the opposite of what Gallup found in June when asked in the context of special counselor Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“In myriad ways, the headwinds Trump faces are quite different from the ones faced by his embattled predecessors,” Gallup concluded. “But Gallup’s trends do show that public opinion on the question of a president’s fate can indeed move, and that low support for such actions can undermine efforts to successfully remove a president.”