Most Americans See Economic Situation Improving

A new Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, conducted among 1,859 registered voters between November 27-29, sheds light on the public's understand of the ongoing impeachment fight and takes stock of voters' real concerns as we enter into 2020.

First, Trump approval has been edging up for several months now, and the president was at 47 percent approval as of the end of November. At the same time, the impeachment testimonies have not moved the dial among voters despite high visibility and wall to wall media coverage. Voters say they are split on whether the public congressional testimonies presented any compelling evidence to impeach Trump (52% said “yes”; 48% said “no”).

The poll also shows no change in impeachment sentiment between October and November, with 43% of voters supporting impeaching and removing President Trump from office; 18% supporting formally censuring the president; and 39% believing no action should be taken.

Impeachment has furthermore settled into partisan fault lines with independents increasingly split on the issue: 70% of GOPers want no action to be taken; 72% of Democrats want the president to be impeached and removed from office; and Independents are split with 40% saying impeach and remove from office, 39% saying no action should be taken, and 20% in favor of censure.

Overall, voters are split on whether impeachment is a waste of time (53%) or an important process (47%), and fifty three percent of voters believe we should focus more on 2020 election than impeachment.

On the Democratic side, Joe Biden still leads the horserace with 29% support among Dems. Mike Bloomberg debuted at seven percent which has him tied for 4th place with Pete Buttigieg (8%). And if Hillary Clinton enters the race she would be tied for front runner with Joe Biden. Overall, the general election remains wide open, and Joe Biden has some explaining to do relative to questions about Hunter Biden, with 57% of voters now wanting the latter’s business dealings to be investigated.

Finally, Harvard CAPS/Harris wanted to profile American voters ahead of the 2020 election, a project they partnered with The New Center to conduct. Key take-away: America is a centrist country dominated by political parties out of step with the voters. For more detail we invite you to read Mark Penn's New Center colleague Bill Galston’s WSJ editorial on the poll.

As always, readers and listeners are invited to send questions and engage in a conversation on the findings. I’d also like to thank my collaborators, and the Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) and the Harris Poll for their continued work on this poll. The link to the full poll is here.

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