As we noted Monday, public sentiment for impeachment dramatically shifted upward after Democrats announced their impeachment inquiry, with voters now approving of the inquiry by a 49-46 margin.
Let’s take a look at who is moving on impeachment:
Independents 46 support/ 47 oppose (+11)
Democrats 86/6 (+4)
Republicans 7/91 (+4)
Women 55/40 (+5)
Men 42/53 (+8)
White men 34/62 (+8)
White women 46/49 (+5)
White women are currently the only persuadable demographic—they voted for 52-43 for Trump in 2016, yet in 2018, they went 49-49 in House races—a net 9-point shift, enough to handily win us control of the House. It’s actually more granular than that—it is suburban white women who are in play. (Urban white women are heavily Democratic, like all urban whites. Rural white women are like their male counterparts, heavily Republican.)
If we can hold those suburban white women next year, it’s hard to see how Trump can win. We’re talking key suburbs around Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Phoenix, Milwaukee, and so on. This is why some Republicans recently flirted with the idea of replacing Mike Pence with Nikki Haley on the 2020 presidential ticket. That’s why Elizabeth Warren launched out of the gate with her proposal for free childcare. Watch campaign messaging in the months ahead, and you’ll see how those suburban white women show up as targets.
At the same time, obviously, a successful Democratic campaign has to motivate our base to turn out at historic levels. And that’s the tightrope campaigns must walk—turn out our base, but do so in a way that doesn’t alienate suburban white women, while convincing those white women to defect from Trump without alienating our base. Joe Biden does it all clumsy, arguing against integrated school busing and the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits government-funded abortions). On the other hand, Warren’s free childcare is a winner.
So this initial impeachment polling is extremely encouraging. A +5 improvement among white women might not seem so impressive compared to what we’re seeing from independents (or even white men!) but it tells us that 1) impeachment isn’t alienating them, quite the opposite, and 2) at near parity on the question of impeachment, we’re seeing numbers close to the 2018 exit poll numbers. And yes, it looks like impeachment is having an effect on Trump’s own favorability numbers, a measure that has been incredibly stable since Inauguration Day:
As good as the numbers look among women, let’s not ignore the rest of those gains!
There was a great deal of fear (driven by swing-district House Democrats) that impeachment would be politically dangerous for Democrats, amping up the Republican base while alienating independents. The stuff about Republicans was always silly. Trump will have them amped up enough. All he has to do is scream about rapist Mexicans or doctors ripping live babies from the womb and throwing them in the trash or whatever other shit he’ll invent out of thin air.
But there was a real question over how independents would react to impeachment. As the Civiqs data shows, that fear was misplaced. They’ve shown the single best improvement of any group we track with that 11-point swing.
Impeachment numbers can improve slightly among Democrats, 8% are still undecided. Maybe we can squeeze a point or two more from Republicans (it’s their 18-34 cohort that has moved a little). But if we’re going to see the dam break and have Republicans do the right thing, we’ll need to see more erosion among those independents. With our current News-Bombshell-A-Minute cycle, hopefully we see that happen.