Adam Schiff will NOT like this. Swing voters are not reacting well to the Democrat impeachment effort. A Politico article written by Gabby Orr reveals a distinct lack of support for impeachment by voters in focus groups.
The survey was conducted by a pro-Trump super PAC called America First Action, but they screened out all voters who were committed to voting either for or against Trump in 2020.
Each of the focus groups — held in Iowa, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — included 10 to 12 registered voters with mixed educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. A group in Phoenix featured only suburban women, while separate groups in Orlando were limited to seniors and suburban men. Forty-seven percent of participants voted for Trump in 2016, while 49 percent supported his then-Democratic rival Hillary Clinton or third-party alternatives, according to Wes Anderson, a Republican strategist who ran the focus groups along with former Trump campaign pollster Adam Geller.
And among the very surprising results of the surveys was this shocker:
In a focus group conducted after House Democrats took their impeachment inquiry public, participants were asked if they thought Trump should be impeached. Not a single person raised a hand, including a woman who later expressed broad disgust with the president’s behavior. A POLITICO reporter viewed video clips and readouts that were preselected from more than 30 hours of footage gathered from the sessions — including some that contained anti-Trump comments from participants, who were identified only by first names and last initials.
Wow! But wait.... There's more:
Others described the impeachment process as “a waste of time” or too complicated to digest. Two people in the Pittsburgh group perceived impeachment as an admission by Democrats that their party lacks electable candidates heading into the 2020 presidential contest. So far, matchup polls have found a mix of potential outcomes in states Trump carried in 2016.
“If they were confident their eventual candidate could beat Trump in 2020 … why would they be doing this a year out from the 2020 election?” asked Adam K., who backed Trump in 2016.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff that I do not agree with around Donald Trump, but at the same time … I feel as though the Democratic Party — none of the people who are running are strong enough to take him on. That’s the problem,” said Tosha L., another Clinton voter.
Finally we see what could be a warning to the Democrats as to what the Trump strategy could be in 2020:
Instead of making next year’s election a personality contest, the president’s political team plans to overwhelm critical swing voters and independents with information about both his accomplishments and the positions embraced by the field of Democratic candidates.
“It’s going to be substance over style, and we believe on the substance points, it’s a clear winner and that will overcome the president’s style,” the official said.
If the effect of this Politico article is a sense that the Democrats should stick to policy instead of obsessing about impeachment, it doesn't appear that the Democrats are heeding it.
