Impeach Trump!
Impeach Trump!

More than three in five Wash­ing­to­ni­ans dis­ap­prove of Don­ald Trump’s job per­for­mance and almost that many want the House to impeach him, a new statewide sur­vey con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

61% of like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers said they dis­ap­proved of Trump’s job per­for­mance, a fig­ure iden­ti­cal to our find­ing from last May. 36% said they approved of Trump’s job per­for­mance, and 4% were not sure.

Asked about impeach­ment, 58% of respon­dents said they favored impeach­ing Trump, while 38% were opposed. 4% were not sure.

Our sur­vey of nine hun­dred like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, Octo­ber 22nd through Wednes­day, Octo­ber 23rd.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy inclu­sive of cell­phone only vot­ers, with 53% of respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing via land­line and 43% par­tic­i­pat­ing via text.

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

Here’s our job per­for­mance ques­tion and responses:

QUESTION: Do you approve or dis­ap­prove of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s job performance?

ANSWERS:

  • Dis­ap­prove: 61%
  • Approve: 36%
  • Not sure: 4%

Note that per­cent­ages do not add to one hun­dred due to rounding.

Here are the num­bers by region:

QUESTION: Do you approve or dis­ap­prove of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s job performance?

ANSWERS:

  • King Coun­ty
    • Dis­ap­prove: 78%
    • Approve: 19%
    • Not sure: 3%
  • North Puget Sound 
    • Dis­ap­prove: 54%
    • Approve: 41%
    • Not sure: 5%
  • South Sound
    • Dis­ap­prove: 54%
    • Approve: 41%
    • Not sure: 5%
  • Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Washington 
    • Dis­ap­prove: 61%
    • Approve: 38%
    • Not sure: 1%
  • East­ern Washington 
    • Dis­ap­prove: 46%
    • Approve: 49%
    • Not sure: 5%

If you’d like to see the num­bers from our ear­li­er find­ing, they are avail­able in this Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate blog post from May 2019.

While the over­all num­ber dis­ap­prov­ing of Trump’s job per­for­mance stayed the same at 61%, there were some changes at the region­al level.

Dis­ap­proval of Trump in King Coun­ty shot up to 78% while declin­ing in North and South Puget Sound. Trump’s approval also slid in the Olympia Penin­su­la and South­west Wash­ing­ton while slight­ly rebound­ing in East­ern Washington.

Nation­wide polls show that more Amer­i­cans also dis­ap­prove of Trump’s job per­for­mance than approve, although the dis­par­i­ty is less pro­nounced than it is in Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled states such as Washington.

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who sup­port impeach­ment are about as numer­ous as those who dis­ap­prove of Trump’s job per­for­mance. Here’s our impeach­ment question:

QUESTION: Do you sup­port or oppose impeach­ing Don­ald Trump?

ANSWERS:

  • Sup­port: 58%
  • Oppose: 38%
  • Not sure: 4%

Here are the num­bers by region:

QUESTION: Do you sup­port or oppose impeach­ing Don­ald Trump?

ANSWERS:

  • King Coun­ty
    • Sup­port: 71%
    • Oppose: 22%
    • Not sure: 7%
  • North Puget Sound 
    • Sup­port: 50%
    • Oppose: 46%
    • Not sure: 4%
  • South Sound
    • Sup­port: 52%
    • Oppose: 45%
    • Not sure: 3%
  • Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Washington 
    • Sup­port: 59%
    • Oppose: 38%
    • Not sure: 3%
  • East­ern Washington 
    • Sup­port: 48%
    • Oppose: 50%
    • Not sure: 2%

Note that the mar­gin of error is high­er for the region­al subsamples.

It is notable that a major­i­ty of the elec­torate sup­ports impeach­ing the law­less Don­ald Trump in every region of the state except for East­ern Wash­ing­ton, where vot­ers are almost even­ly divid­ed on the question.

All of the Democ­rats in Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion have announced sup­port for an impeach­ment inquiry, while none of the Repub­li­cans (Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers) have fol­lowed suit.

Her­rera-Beut­ler is the only one of the three who rep­re­sents a slice of Wash­ing­ton State that’s west of the Cas­cades. Our research indi­cates her con­stituents aren’t hap­py with Trump and want him impeached. Yet Her­rera-Beut­ler is still vot­ing in lock­step with Trump and top House Repub­li­can Kevin McCarthy.

Her­rera-Beut­ler is also the only Repub­li­can left who rep­re­sents a dis­trict that bor­ders the Pacif­ic Ocean in the con­tigu­ous forty-eight states. The Repub­li­can Par­ty con­sid­ers her among its most vul­ner­a­ble incum­bents and has clas­si­fied her cam­paign as need­ing help from the par­ty’s House cam­paign arm.

Chal­lenger Car­olyn Long turned heads around the coun­try last cycle by seem­ing­ly com­ing out of nowhere to give Her­rera-Beut­ler her first cred­i­ble chal­lenge in a long time (pun intend­ed). Her­rera-Beut­ler’s share of the vote decreased from 61.75% in 2016 to 52.67%% in 2018. That per­for­mance spurred Long to seek a rematch.

With an ear­li­er start and increased name recog­ni­tion, Long has an even bet­ter chance of win­ning in 2020. She will also ben­e­fit from the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty mak­ing WA-03 its top elec­toral tar­get, hav­ing already picked up WA-08 in 2018.

We imag­ine that as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic impeach­ment inquiry moves along, sup­port for impeach­ment will con­tin­ue to grow, both in Wash­ing­ton and across the country.

The evi­dence against Trump is already com­pelling — it shows that he abused his pow­er and vio­lat­ed his oath of office. Vot­ers don’t like that. They want Trump held account­able. It’s bad enough that one branch of our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment isn’t func­tion­ing well — for our coun­try to emerge from this mess, we need our sys­tem of checks and bal­ances to work. The House must do its job and impeach Trump.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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