Forget the GOP talking point that voters are sick and tired of impeachment and all they want is for Congress to get back to other issues. Like just about everything else peddled by Republicans these days, it's false. In a “Nationscape” survey conducted by UCLA in partnership with the Democracy Fund, impeachment ranked as a top-two priority for Democrats and Republicans alike—even topping typically favored issues such as health care or the border wall, for instance.
The survey of more than 110,000 people across the country gave respondents 10 different chances to select a bucket of four issues that they hoped to see come to fruition. The issues that recurred most often within those buckets were then deemed among the highest priorities of respondents.
For Democrats, impeachment was their second most important issue behind ending family separation at the Southern border. Democrats were almost 40% more inclined to pick an issue bucket when impeachment was part of it. Democrats' No. 3 and 4 issues were "no ban on abortion" and "don't build a wall."
For Republicans, impeachment was actually their top issue, and they were 45% more likely to choose a bucket that included "don't impeach Trump." Their second top issue was not banning guns, while "no slavery reparations" and "build a wall" came in at No. 3 and 4, respectively.
So the next time you hear someone say that no one cares about impeachment, ignore them. People on both sides of aisle care an awful lot.
Check out graphs of voters' priorities below.
Democrats
Republicans
These graphs are interactive if you head over to the NYT piece.