As Democrats inch slightly closer to impeaching President Donald Trump, a new Fox News poll shows that Americans who oppose impeachment are distinctly in the minority. Trump lashed out at Fox News’ head-to-head poll with Joe Biden this week, but he may have missed the most worrisome result.

While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi still appears reluctant to dive into the impeachment pool, and the House Judiciary Committee limbers up on the diving board, a new Fox News poll shows that while support for impeachment has ticked down slightly, opposition to an impeachment inquiry has gone down to just 45 percent.

In June, that poll showed 50 percent of Americans favored beginning an impeachment inquiry, including 7 percent who said Trump should be impeached but not removed as president. In July, 47 percent said he should be impeached, including 5 percent who said Trump should be impeached and not removed.

But the theory of political risk in impeaching Trump relies on the notion that the public would strongly oppose such an action, and according to this same poll, that opposition is squarely in the minority.

In June, 48 percent said Trump should not be impeached at all, a number which fell to 45 percent in the new survey. And among independent voters, opposition to impeachment is at just 41 percent.

But the poll does show one possible effect of the Democrats’ reticence to press the case for impeachment. The greatest movement on this poll question was from support of impeachment to “don’t know,” especially among independents. In June, just 5 percent of independents said they didn’t know if Trump should be impeached or not, but in July, that number was at 13 percent. Even then, a plirality of independents still supports impeaching Trump.

And none of these numbers take into account the effect of Mueller’s congressional testimony this past week, as these polls were conducted beforehand.

Photo via MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images.

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