From the perspective of House Republicans, they’d ideally have some evidence to bolster their impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. They do not. They’d also ideally have some unanimity among their ranks as part of the endeavor. They don’t have that, either. They’d also ideally have the support of the GOP colleagues in the Senate. They don’t have that, either.
But at least the public is on the party’s side, right? Actually, no. The Washington Post recently summarized the latest data:
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, Americans agreed, 51 percent to 33 percent, that Hunter Biden’s legal troubles were “independent of and unrelated to” Biden’s service as president. Independents said that by a 2-1 margin, and even 32 percent of Republicans agreed. And while half of Americans in the Fox News poll saw something illegal in Hunter Biden’s actions, 38 percent said the same of the president’s supposed connection to “his son’s business dealings.” That 38 percent is overwhelmingly Republican, with just 33 percent of independents seeing something illegal in the president’s actions.
These results were not necessarily inevitable. Much of the public is cynical and inclined to believe the worst about political officials in positions of authority. With prominent GOP voices spending months peddling bizarre claims about “bribery” and “corruption,” it stands to reason that a lot of voters, especially those who don’t keep up on day-to-day developments in the news, might start to assume that there’s some legitimacy to the Republican attacks, reality notwithstanding.
But at least in recent polling, GOP claims aren’t exactly winning over wide swaths of the public.
The same Post analysis noted that when the Democratic-led House pursued Donald Trump’s impeachment, “majorities of Americans and sometimes nearly 6 in 10 supported the two Trump impeachment efforts early on.”
It might be tempting to think that support for Trump’s impeachment was stronger because Trump was a more scandal-plagued and unpopular figure, but when it comes to approval ratings, Biden and his predecessor had nearly identical public support at comparable points in their term.
The difference is, Trump was responsible for actual wrongdoing, which was bolstered by considerable evidence. The same simply cannot be said about his successor.