Polls

Voters Think Trump Should Resign Over Harassment Allegations

| pppadmin

PPP’s newest national poll finds that a majority of voters think Donald Trump should resign from the Presidency because of the allegations of sexual harassment against him. 53% think Trump should step down to just 42% who think he should remain in office. 53% of voters believe the women who have accused Trump of harassment, to 31% who think they aren’t telling the truth.

On a related note, 63% of voters agree with Al Franken’s decision to resign from the Senate to 21% who disagree with it. Both Trump voters (71/14) and Clinton voters (57/29) agree with Franken’s decision to resign. The divide on what should happen to Trump is more predictable with Clinton voters (86/10) overwhelmingly saying he should resign and Trump voters (12/83) overwhelmingly saying he shouldn’t.

Interestingly Clinton voters are more likely than Trump voters to believe the accusers when it comes to the allegations again both Franken and Trump. A majority of Clinton voters believe Franken’s accusers (62/16), while just a plurality of Trump’s do (45/20). When it comes to the accusations against Trump things are much more polarized with Clinton voters (88/7) almost universally believing them while Trump voters (10/63) are considerably more skeptical.

In general Trump voters seem relatively unconcerned with his behavior toward women. Just 45% say they would disapprove of Trump sexually harassing women while 22% actually say they would approve of him doing so, and 32% express no opinion either way. Trump voters are also somewhat skeptical of the ‘Me Too’ movement, giving it just a 37/33 favorability rating, compared to 74/10 among Clinton voters. Overall voters agree with Time Magazine’s decision to give the ‘Me Too’ movement its Person of the Year award 51/35, but there is predictable disagreement on that too with Clinton voters saying 82/6 they support the honorees and Trump voters saying 75/15 it instead should have been Trump.

The reaction of Trump voters to the recent charges against Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort is…fire Robert Mueller and hate the FBI. 56% of them think Mueller should be fired to only 17% who are opposed to such a move. 53% say they disapprove of the job the FBI is doing, to just 24% who approve.

Despite the recent revelations only 13% of Trump voters believe that members of his campaign team worked in association with Russia to help him win the election, to 78% who say they don’t think so. Those numbers have barely budged from 11% and 76% when we first asked about this in April. 78% of Trump voters say the Russia story is ‘Fake News,’ which is actually up from 69% in April even with the new information that’s come in. And Trump voters don’t care even if collusion is proven- 77% say he should remain in office if that happens to just 14% who think he should resign.

The political climate continues to be shaping up very well for Democrats in 2018. They have a 51-40 lead on the generic Congressional ballot. The Republicans in Congress have a terrible brand- Paul Ryan’s approval rating is 23/58 and he comes out looking good in comparison to Mitch McConnell who is at 13/61.

One thing that’s not helping the GOP is the tax bill- only 29% of voters support it to 49% who are opposed. And by a 23 point margin voters say they’re less likely to vote for a member of Congress next year who supports it- 49% say support for the tax bill makes them less likely to vote for someone, to only 26% who consider it a positive.

And the more tuned in to the tax debate voters are, the worse it gets for Republicans. Among those who say they’ve heard ‘a lot’ about the tax plan 62% oppose it, and that group of voters gives Democrats a 63-33 advantage on the generic House ballot. Only 26% of voters think the middle class and small businesses will be the primary beneficiary of the bill, with 61% thinking it will be the wealthy and large corporations.

It’s not just the things Congressional Republicans *are* doing that are getting them in trouble- it’s also the things they’re not doing. 66% of voters support the Dream Act, to only 23% who are opposed to it. There’s only 20% support for a government shutdown, to 63% of voters who are opposed to it. And if there is a shutdown voters are clear on where they’ll place the blame- 52% say they’ll hold Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress responsible for it, to only 40% who say they’d pin the blame on the Democrats in Congress.

A few weeks ago Donald Trump suggested that a ‘Fake News’ trophy be given out to the most dishonest TV network. We asked voters who they thought should win this and Trump’s own network of choice Fox News came out as the clear winner at 41% to 30% for CNN with NBC at 6%, CBS at 2%, and ABC at 1% barely registering.

Trump continues to be coming out behind on all of his various feuds with the media. Voters trust the Washington Post more than him 55/38, the New York Times more than him 55/39, ABC, CBS, and NBC more than him 54/39, and CNN more than him 52/39. They even trust Fox News more than him 33/28 because forced to make the choice Clinton voters say Fox News at least has more credibility than Trump by a 33 point margin.

Voters wish Barack Obama was still President instead of Trump 56/39. Trump is also losing badly to all the Democrats we tested against him in early 2020 match ups. He’s down 54-40 to Joe Biden, 53-40 to Bernie Sanders, 50-40 to Cory Booker, 51-42 to Elizabeth Warren, 47-40 to Kirsten Gillibrand, and 46-40 to Kamala Harris. The number for the various Democrats moves around some based on name recognition, but Trump stays consistently in that 40-42% range.

Trump’s approval rating this month is 41% to 56% of voters who disapprove of him. Much has been made of Trump’s numbers being so poor despite an improving economy, but only 32% of voters actually say their economic situation has improved in the last year. 22% think it’s gotten worse, and 42% say it’s just stayed the same.

We broke the responses to this question down based on whether people own stocks or not, and the results were illuminating. Among those who do have stocks 41% say their situation has gotten better to 15% who say it’s gotten worse and 43% who say it’s stayed about the same. But among those who don’t own stocks more people- 29%- actually say things have gotten worse for them this year to 24% who say they’ve gotten better and 40% who say they’ve stayed about the same.

Other notes on Trump:

-Only 38% of voters think he’s honest, to 57% who say he’s not. 55% flat out call him a liar, to only 39% who disagree with that characterization.

-62% of voters still want to see his tax returns, to 31% who say it isn’t necessary.

-51% of voters believe Trump is mentally unbalanced, to 44% who say they think he’s mentally stable.

-Just 37% of voters think he’s delivered on his core campaign promise to ‘Make America Great Again,’ while 57% say he hasn’t.

-For the first time we find a majority of voters- 51%- support impeaching Trump to 42% who are opposed.

For all of that Trump does have one thing going for him though- the Republican Party is definitely still the party of Trump. 70% of GOP voters say they want Trump to be their candidate again in 2020, to only 24% who say they’d prefer someone else. Trump leads Mike Pence by 40 (62/22), Ted Cruz by 43 (64/21), John Kasich by 51 (70/19), and Jeff Flake by 58 (74/16) in head to head match ups. The country overall may have had enough of him, but he remains on strong ground within his own party.

Full results here

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