Nearly a third of the country said Michael Cohen's testimony to Congress two weeks ago damaged their view of Donald Trump's administration, according to a newly released Civiqs poll commissioned by Daily Kos.
Asked if Cohen's testimony improved, worsened, or had no effect on their view of the Trump administration, 35 percent said it worsened their view, 11 percent said it improved their view, and 50 percent said it had no effect. Only 2 percent of respondents said they weren't aware of the hearing, suggesting Cohen's testimony was indeed an event with national impact.
So why does that 35 percent matter? Because Democrats are embarking on an ongoing public relations campaign that seeks to fully illuminate Trump's criminality, thereby potentially convincing a solid majority of Americans that he should be impeached. Cohen's testimony was one of the first steps in that effort, and this is the first poll to address how the hearing impacted people’s view of Trump across the country. To many, that 35 percent may seem small. But considering the fact that partisan views of Trump and his administration are pretty firmly entrenched among many Americans, only a smaller cross section of the electorate remains persuadable. As the Civiqs data shows, the Cohen hearing dampened the view of at least some occasional Fox viewers (22 percent), more than half of Americans who don't watch Fox, and 31 percent of independents. In other words, the hearing seems to have reached some of the very people whom Democrats clearly need to reach.
It's also notable that fully 92 percent of frequent Fox viewers said Cohen's testimony either improved their view of the Trump administration or had no effect on it. That cross section of the nation is hermetically sealed from objective reality and effectively dead to the world. In other words, frequent Fox viewers are the ultimate unpersuadables.
But among people who could be swayed, if another third of the country became convinced that Trump should be impeached, for instance, that would bring support for impeachment up to an extremely strong majority—anywhere from about 65 percent of the country to about 80 percent of it, depending on the base polling one uses. For instance, a Quinnipiac poll several weeks ago put support for Democrats initiating impeachment proceedings against Trump at about a third of voters, while Civiqs' daily tracking poll finds that some 44 percent of the nation more generally supports impeaching Trump.
Either way, the new polling suggests that more hearings like Cohen's could continue to chip away at public sentiment in favor of Trump and his administration, similar to how the 1973 Watergate hearings savaged support for President Richard Nixon, and then the 1974 impeachment hearings, which began in February, steadily boosted support for his ouster.