Q&A of the Day – Where Floridians stand on the impeachment inquiry
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry...
What’s the real story on opinion polls about impeachment? Seems like media picks the polls they like to report. Also, I haven’t about where Florida stands.
Bottom Line: There’s been a hodge podge of impeachment polling for sure in recent weeks. As you suggested it’s complicated by impeachment polls being selectively reported as well. The first thing to know is that, based on Gallup’s monthly partisan identity polling, there are 2% more Democrats than Republicans across the country right now. In Florida that advantage is exactly 1.8% based on current registered voters. Why is that important? The sampling of most polls has been way off. I’ve commonly found polls oversampling Democrats by up to ten points. All polling needs to be adjusted to account for the fact that whether it’s in Florida or across the country, there should be no more than a 2% sampling advantage for Democrats. Also, there are numerous pollsters, like Quinnipiac, that often don’t provide any sampling information and thus aren’t credible in any capacity (though they’re commonly cited). The next layer of confusion comes into play with what’s actually being polled. Is it the impeachment inquiry process? Is it the actual removal of the President? They’re two very different questions with often polling differences between them. With all of that established, let’s get to it.
First a look at the national landscape...
The most recent and best sampling comes from Grinnell College’s polling. Their sample was D+1, which under sampled Democrats by 1%. On the question of the impeachment inquiry, 48% support it. On the question of removal, 42% support it. With Democrats under sampled by a point you could safely add a point to each to have a high-end fair assessment of where people generally stand. You’ll notice that majorities of Americans don’t support either the inquiry or removal. As for Florida...
The only recent sampling came just over a week ago from the University of North Florida. The sample in that poll was R+2. Meaning they over sampled Republicans by 3.8%. In their polling 48% supported the inquiry and 46% supported removal. If we were to adjust for the sampling – it's possible that just over half of Floridians support the inquiry with just under half supporting removal.
When we look at all of this in context, whether it’s Florida or the rest of the country, around half of people are on board with the inquiry but most Americans don’t feel that President Trump should be removed from office as of now.