WBUR Poll: N.H. Voters Divided Along Party Lines On Impeachment

A new WBUR poll finds New Hampshire voters divided along party lines over whether President Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

Among likely voters in the Democratic presidential primary, 69% say Trump should be removed from office.

"He is using the presidency as his own personal piggy bank, and he's lying to the American public repeatedly. He is engaging with other countries to undermine his political rivals, which is completely unforgivable, and should be, if it's not already, unconstitutional," says Steve Terhune, a 47-year-old information technology project manager from Brentwood who was among the poll respondents.

The poll, conducted by The MassINC Polling Group, surveyed 442 likely voters in the Democratic primary (topline results, crosstabs), and concluded two days before House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against Trump. The poll surveyed 365 likely voters in the Republican primary (topline results, crosstabs).

An overwhelming majority of likely voters in the Republican presidential primary — 83% — say Trump should not be removed.

"When President Trump was talking to the Ukrainian president and asking for information on Biden, I think he should be doing that, and when he was asking for information he didn't necessarily say, 'I want some negative information,' " says Barbara Miller, a 35-year-old commercial banker in Portsmouth, another poll respondent. "He said, 'Give me some information.' Perhaps the Ukrainians will look into this and Biden's son, [and determine] there's no wrongdoing there. That might even be the outcome of the investigation."

Of all respondents, 79% of likely voters in the Democratic primary and 77% of likely voters in the Republican primary say they have followed news of the impeachment inquiry very or somewhat closely.

Voters are again divided sharply along party lines on whether Trump did anything wrong in his dealings with Ukraine. Only 19% of Republicans say Trump did something wrong, compared to 80% of Democrats.

When asked if they could imagine any information coming out during the impeachment inquiry that might change their stance, 66% of likely voters in the Democratic primary and 62% of likely voters in the Republican primary say their minds were made up.

Andrew Wright, 35, of Merrimack, who manages a small business, is among those Democratic primary voters surveyed who said they could change their minds.

"There's ample evidence that the President did something wrong," Wright says, "but if they can show something further in these hearings that he didn't, or prove that he didn't know, then yeah, my opinion would change."

Voters were contacted from Dec. 3–8. The margin of error in the poll of likely voters in the Democratic primary is 4.7%. In the poll of likely voters in the Republican primary, it's 5.1%.