The first page of the House Judiciary Committee's two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on Capitol Hill on Dec. 13. A new poll finds half of voters support the House impeaching the president, statistically similar to previous Morning Consult/Politico surveys on the topic. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

50% support impeaching Trump; 43% oppose.

Republican voters are more likely than Democratic voters to see impeachment as an advantage in the 2020 presidential election.

As the House prepares to vote to impeach President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power regarding his interactions with Ukraine and obstructing Congress in its impeachment investigation, the president’s opponents have the lion’s share of the voting public in their corner. The latest Morning Consult/Politico nationwide poll found half of voters support the historic vote to send presidential articles of impeachment to the Senate for the third time in U.S. history, while 43 percent are opposed.

Public support for impeachment now more closely resembles American sentiment at the height of the scandals that led to former President Richard Nixon’s resignation, when a majority supported it, compared to where it was ahead of the House’s vote to impeach President Bill Clinton in December 1998, when most Americans opposed it, according to Gallup and other public polling at the time of Clinton’s problems. The figures have been more or less statistically unchanged, ranging from inside to just outside the surveys’ 2-percentage-point margins of error, since Morning Consult began weekly tracking of the question in October following the start of the House’s impeachment inquiry. That steadiness is driven by entrenchment among voters on both sides of the aisle, with 75 percent of Democrats strongly in favor of Trump’s impeachment and 79 percent of Republicans strongly opposed, according to the latest survey, conducted Dec. 14-15. Voters made no distinction between the House side of the process and the upcoming Senate trial: Fifty percent also backed Trump’s removal from office, with equal shares of Democrats and Republicans (86 percent each) in support and opposition respectively.