If Republicans take control of the US House in the 2022 midterm elections, over two-thirds of Republican supporters believe President Joe Biden should be impeached, while the overall number of Americans who believe the same has reached one-third of the population.
Acccording to a recent YouGov poll done for UMass Amherst, 68% of Republicans want Biden impeached by a GOP-controlled Congress. At the same time, just over a third of the poll's 1,000 respondents (34%) believe a GOP-controlled House should impeach Biden. Another 66% of conservatives want to see the president charged by Congress with treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, as defined by the Constitution.
The poll also found that when asked whether participants believe a Republican-controlled House will impeach Biden, 44% of respondents answered yes, while over half of Republicans (53%) said yes.
"The decision to impeach a president was once viewed as a last resort to reign in a president who pushed or broke through the boundaries of our laws, values and ethics," Tatishe Nteta, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll, is quoted in a release as saying.
"Today, impeachment is no longer a final option, but one of many weapons to be used in an era of rampant partisan polarization to gain an upper hand on one’s partisan opponents. With a number of Republican members of Congress calling to impeach President Biden, the chorus will likely grow louder if and when the Republican Party takes control of the US House in 2022," Nteta added.
The poll also indicated strong levels of enthusiasm for voting in the midterm elections, with Republican voters scoring slightly higher than Democrats.
According to the findings, on a scale of 0-100, Republicans assessed themselves as 79 points excited about the midterm elections, while Democrats ranked themselves as 73 points excited. Independents, on the other hand, have an average rating of 47.
"In the 2018 midterm, turnout was at its highest level since 1914 with close to 120 million Americans going to the polls,” Nteta said. “Our results suggest that the days of low voter turnout in midterm elections may be over with Americans on both sides of the partisan divide expressing excitement to vote in 2022 and expressing their belief that the results of the 2022 midterm will be important for the nation’s future."
The economy is by far the most important topic on voters' concerns, according to the poll. When it came to choosing a candidate for the midterm elections, almost one-third of all respondents (32%), nearly half of Republicans (45%), and more than a third of independents (37%) cited the economy as the most significant topic.
Democrats, on the other hand, selected the economy (22%), climate change (20%), and abortion (18%) as their top issues moving into the November election.
Former President Donald Trump was impeached twice, the second time for allegedly inciting the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Over 71% of Americans believe the events surrounding the tragedy were illegal, according to another recent poll.