Poll: Florida voters split on impeachment
A poll that was released Wednesday shows 51% of Florida voters don’t want President Trump convicted and removed from office. Showing the deep division among Floridians: 49% are for removal.
As the impeachment of President Donald Trump moves toward a Senate trial, a poll released Wednesday shows 51% of Florida voters don’t want him convicted and removed from office.
Showing the deep division among Floridians: 49% are for removal.
The numbers come from a Florida Atlantic University poll.
“I think it is evidence once again that Florida is a very sharply divided state,” said Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist and research fellow at the university’s Business and Economics Polling Initiative. “Whenever you ask a question about President Trump in Florida, roughly half are going to be supportive of the president and roughly half are going to be opposed. The number will move a few points either way, but the key takeaway is that a lot of people like him and a lot of people don’t.”
Florida voters’ overall opinion of Trump hasn’t changed much, with 45% approving and 43% disapproving, a net positive of 2 percentage points.
“Fundamentally, the approval number and the impeachment number, while they don’t exactly mirror each other, kind of represent a very similar kind of question to people,” Wagner said. “If you think he should be removed, you probably don’t think he’s doing a very good job and vice versa.”
FAU’s last poll, in September, found 49% approving of Trump’s performance and 46% disapproving, a net positive of 3 percentage points.
In May, Trump also had a net positive of 3 points, but that was the first time during his presidency that more Florida voters were positive than negative about his performance.
In September 2018, the same poll found 39% approval and 47% disapproval, a net negative of 8 percentage points.
The Florida findings continue the trend throughout the Trump presidency — he fares better in the Sunshine State than nationally. The Real Clear Politics average of eight polls conducted since Dec. 27 shows a national approval of 45% and disapproval of 53%, a net negative of 8 percentage points.
The Florida results come from an FAU Business and Economics Polling Initiative survey of 1,285 registered voters conducted online and through automated calls to people with landline telephones from Thursday through Sunday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Breakdowns for smaller groups, such as Democrats, Republicans and breakdowns by age, have higher margins of error.