William Cummings | USA TODAY

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Despite the current hyper-partisan political climate, opposition to foreign election interference transcends party lines, according to a new Grinnell College National Poll.

When asked if it is acceptable for "political candidates in the U.S. to ask for assistance from a foreign government to help them win an election," four in five Americans said no. That opposition remained strong among Republicans – 81% of whom said it was not OK to seek foreign assistance.

"When it comes to foreign interference, having findings this close to a consensus are rare in polling these days," said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which has helped conduct the Grinnell National Poll since its launch in 2018. Selzer also conducts polls for the Des Moines Register, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.

The House of Representatives is currently conducting an impeachment inquiry into allegations that President Donald Trump used military aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine to investigate potential 2016 election interference and separate allegations of impropriety against former Vice President Joe Biden.

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Trump has denied any "quid pro quo" between the aid and his call for the investigations, which he said was motivated by a desire to combat corruption.

Critics have noted that Trump's purported anti-corruption crusade in Ukraine seemed focused exclusively on Biden, who is a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Although Americans agreed that it's wrong to seek foreign interference, they returned to the party lines when asked if they thought Trump should be removed from office.

"The substance of the question at hand in the impeachment inquiry does not seem in dispute. What’s appropriate in terms of process and consequences are far less clear," Selzer said.

Overall, 42% of the respondents said Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Eighty-three percent of Democrats supported impeachment, while 87% of Republicans did not.

"While nearly all Republicans believe that asking for foreign help to win an election is the wrong thing to do, in this case, most don’t believe it rises to the level of an impeachable offense," said Peter Hanson, the director of the Grinnell College National Poll.

Notably, the Grinnell pollsters asked about foreign election meddling in general, and did not mention Trump or Biden, which might have contributed to the bipartisan response.

The Washington Post's James Hohmann pointed out that when a Post-Schar School poll released earlier this month asked specifically about Trump's phone call in which he asked Ukraine's president to investigate Biden, only 33% of Republicans thought that Trump acted inappropriately compared with 84% of Democrats.

Similarly, a CNN poll asked, "Based on what you have heard or read about Donald Trump’s interactions with the President of Ukraine, do you believe that Trump improperly used the presidency to gain political advantage against a potential 2020 opponent, or do you think he did not use the presidency improperly?"

Eighty-five of Democrats said Trump acted improperly and 87% of Republicans said he did not.

The Grinnell College poll found that 43% of likely voters approved of Trump's job performance, while 51% disapproved. Thirty-eight percent said they would "definitely" vote to reelect Trump and 47% said they definitely would not.

More than half of Americans (56%) said they had a less favorable opinion of Trump than when he took office, while 39% said their opinion had grown more favorable.

The Grinnell College National Poll was conducted from Oct. 17-23 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.

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