The Week
More than a quarter of the country wants the GOP to start impeachment investigations against Biden
Rafi Schwartz, Staff writer – November 21, 2022
Their razor-thin majority assured, House Republicans are now faced with the reality of actual governance and the demands of their increasingly raucous base for whom the once-fringe prospect of impeaching President Biden has now become a majority opinion, according to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll.
While 28 percent of the country overall said a GOP House investigation into whether Biden should be impeached was a “top priority,” that number nearly doubled to 55 percent among GOP respondents. Just 6 percent of Democrats agreed. Notably, GOP support for investigating Hunter Biden’s finances — a major source of conservative ire and conspiratorial theorizing — is slightly lower than their interest in an impeachment investigation, with 52 percent of GOP respondents calling it a priority for the incoming Congress. Meanwhile, 7 percent of Democrats agreed.
Biden has acknowledged the growing chorus within the GOP House for his impeachment, calling it “almost comedy” and riffing “‘lots of luck in your senior year,’ as my coach used to say” when asked for his response to Republicans pushing the impeachment talk. He previously joked, “I don’t know what the hell they’re going to impeach me for.”
Aspiring House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has largely demurred from backing impeachment for Biden, telling Punchbowl News in October he thinks “the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all” and that in the president’s case “I don’t see it before me right now.”
The Morning Consult/Politico poll was conducted between Nov. 10-14 from a sample of 1,983 registered voters.