What Americans Think Of The Biden Impeachment Inquiry
What Americans Think Of The Biden Impeachment Inquiry
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly-ish polling roundup. It’s officially impeachment season again. On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced th…
It’s officially impeachment season again. On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that he’s directing three House committees to start investigating whether President Biden benefited from his son Hunter’s business dealings overseas. McCarthy accused the Biden family of “a culture of corruption,” saying that the Biden administration gave Hunter “special treatment” in a criminal tax and gun investigation, and that Biden himself had lied about his knowledge of his son’s financial dealings.
The good news for McCarthy and the right-wing supporters of an impeachment investigation is that Americans do seem to believe, overall, that Hunter Biden’s business dealings were sketchy at best and illegal at worst.
But Hunter Biden isn’t the subject of the impeachment inquiry — his father is. So far, Republicans haven’t provided any concrete evidence tying the president to his son’s overseas business, although the impeachment inquiry may allow House Republicans to obtain bank records and other financial documents from Biden and his son. Right now, Republicans are most firmly convinced that Biden is implicated in Hunter’s wrongdoing, while Americans overall are more inclined to see former President Donald Trump’s family as corrupt, compared to the Bidens. And there isn’t a broad consensus that an impeachment inquiry is warranted, signaling that Republicans have some convincing to do if they want the public to support their investigation. Americans think Hunter Biden profited from his father’s position
All of the allegations of a broader web of corruption within the Biden family have yet to be proven. What is less disputed, though, is the fact that Hunter Biden has personally made a significant amount of money through overseas business deals, and is the subject of a long-running criminal investigation. Earlier this summer, he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars of income in 2017 and 2018, with an additional agreement that could allow him to avoid a conviction on a separate illegal gun ownership charge, but the plea deal fell apart after the judge, a Trump appointee, said she refused to “rubber-stamp” the agreement, which she said wasn’t standard. Republicans accused the Biden administration of giving Hunter a “sweetheart” deal and in August, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to continue probing Hunter Biden’s finances.
None of this is a great look for the president’s son, and recent polling shows that Americans are unhappy about Hunter Biden’s behavior. A YouGov/The Economist poll conducted in August, after the plea deal collapsed, found that 72 percent of Americans think Hunter Biden personally profited from his father’s positions in government, including a slim majority (53 percent) of Democrats. The same poll found that two-thirds (66 percent) of Americans have an unfavorable view of Hunter Biden, while only 17 percent have a favorable view (an additional 17 percent said they didn’t know). According to a Yahoo News survey conducted by YouGov in August, 59 percent of Americans think Hunter Biden traded on his family name and proximity to power to get millions of dollars from foreign business associates. The same poll found that 51 percent of Americans believe that Hunter Biden improperly claimed tens of thousands of dollars in tax deductions. And an Ipsos/Politico Magazine poll conducted in August found, similarly, that 59 percent of Americans think that Hunter Biden is guilty of the alleged crimes in the tax non-payment case, including 51 percent of Democrats. Notably, only 2 percent of respondents said they thought he wasn’t guilty, and 38 percent said they didn’t know.
The YouGov/Economist poll’s findings suggest, though, that Americans think most presidents’ children get some level of special treatment. The survey found that 84 percent of respondents think children of U.S. presidents get away with things that other people do not because of their parents’ jobs, and a similar share (85 percent) say that adult children personally profit from their parents’ positions in government at least sometimes. So while Americans do seem convinced, overall, that Hunter Biden has profited financially from his father’s jobs, and even a slim majority of Democrats think he likely committed crimes, the behavior may not be shocking or unexpected.
Republicans are more convinced that Biden is implicated in Hunter’s wrongdoing
Republicans don’t really have to convince Americans that Hunter Biden deserves investigation, or even a criminal trial. But that’s not the question that matters for impeaching his father. To justify impeaching the president, Republicans will have to prove that he was involved in financial wrongdoing or corruption that rises to the level of an impeachable offense. And so far, Republicans are making claims without facts to back them up. When he announced the inquiry, McCarthy asserted — without evidence — that the millions Hunter Biden earned through overseas deals were also shared with Biden family members, and that Biden used his official role as vice president to help get business for Hunter.
More findings that tie Biden and his family to Hunter Biden’s business dealings could, of course, emerge. But right now, Americans haven’t fully bought into the idea that the Biden family is involved in a broader influence-peddling scheme. Less than half (41 percent) of respondents in the Yahoo poll said they believe that Hunter Biden funneled millions of dollars to his father in a long-running scheme to help Joe Biden profit off his position, while 26 percent said they didn’t believe it and 33 percent said they didn’t know. A similar share (44 percent) believe that Biden definitely or probably did something illegal regarding Hunter Biden, while 32 percent believe he definitely or probably did not and 32 percent said they don’t know.
Many Americans are not very tuned in to the allegations against the Bidens, which is probably why these questions result in such a high share of people who say they don’t know. And another recent poll found a slightly higher share of people who say that even if Joe Biden didn’t do something illegal, he may have acted unethically. According to an SSRS/CNN poll conducted in August, 61 percent of Americans agreed that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, although less than half (42 percent) said he acted illegally and 18 percent said he acted unethically but not illegally. Similarly, a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in September found that 35 percent of Americans thought Biden was involved and did something illegal in Hunter Biden’s business dealings with Ukraine and China, while 14 percent think he was involved and did something unethical but not illegal, and 37 percent think he wasn’t involved.
Republicans are most convinced of the Bidens’ wrongdoing
Share of respondents who said they believe that Hunter Biden did each of the following things, by party affiliation
| All | Democrats | Republicans | Independents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traded on his family name and proximity to power to get millions of dollars from foreign business associates | 59 | 37 | 88 |
| Failed to meet tax filing deadlines | 59 | 50 | 78 |
| Improperly claimed tens of thousands of dollars in tax deductions | 51 | 31 | 81 |
| Got preferential treatment from federal prosecutors when striking a plea deal | 51 | 22 | 86 |
| Funneled millions of dollars to his father in a long-running scheme to help Joe Biden profit off of his position | 41 | 10 | 84 |
But as the table above shows, the people who really believe that the Biden family is corrupt are Republicans. Unsurprisingly, Democrats are much less convinced that the president did something wrong, and independents are also pretty divided. Of course, it’s possible that more coverage of the allegations motivating the impeachment inquiry — and any concrete evidence that might get turned up along the way — could change people’s minds, or at least persuade some of the ones who are undecided.
And notably, the Yahoo News survey found that while the share of Americans — including the share of Democrats — who think Hunter Biden did something illegal has increased since last fall, the share of respondents who think Joe Biden broke the law has remained functionally unchanged, despite a drumbeat of Republican accusations to the contrary. Polling by Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research for Fox News has found a similar trend: The share of Americans who think Hunter Biden did something illegal rose from 39 percent last December to 50 percent in August, but the share of Americans who think Joe Biden did something illegal related to his son’s business dealings hasn’t really moved. (The survey found it at 35 percent in December versus 38 percent in August.)
Americans aren’t convinced impeachment is warranted
Perhaps most worryingly for Republicans, most Americans don’t think an impeachment inquiry into Biden is warranted right now. A GBAO/Fabrizio, Lee & Associates poll for The Wall Street Journal conducted in late August found that 52 percent of Americans oppose impeaching Biden, and only 41 percent are in favor. More recently, a YouGov poll conducted on September 13 found that 41 percent of Americans oppose impeaching Biden, 44 percent are in support and 15 percent don’t know. In early October 2019, when Trump’s first impeachment was getting underway, Americans were more closely divided, according to our polling tracker. And in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, majorities of Americans supported Trump’s impeachment; a slim majority of Americans even consistently supported removing Trump from office before the end of his term.
In fact, allegations of corruption are stickier when it comes to the Trump family than the Bidens. According to the Yahoo News survey, 46 percent of Americans think that Trump and his family are more corrupt than the Bidens, while 36 percent think the Bidens are more corrupt than the Trumps. And a recent AP-NORC poll found that Americans were more likely to describe Trump as “corrupt” than Biden. Meanwhile, that September YouGov poll found that Americans are more likely to describe the impeachment inquiry as motivated by politics in an attempt to embarrass Biden (41 percent) rather than a serious effort to find out the truth (28 percent).
That doesn’t mean that Hunter Biden’s legal troubles aren’t a liability for Biden, particularly after a grand jury just indicted him on federal gun charges. A recent Emerson College poll found that while 47 of voters say that the indictments against Trump make them less likely to vote for him for president, 46 percent say the Hunter Biden tax and felony gun charges make them less likely to vote for Joe Biden in 2024. So it’s possible that as Hunter Biden’s investigation continues to unfold, his father could take political damage. But right now, Republicans aren’t just missing evidence that Biden is connected to his son’s wrongdoing in ways that could be impeachable — they also don’t have the public on their side.
A effing plus for not only posting the article text but putting effort in with headings and tables. Well done and appreciated.
Thanks. I messed it up at first (removed one too many header lines) but I finally got it looking right.
Well, your efforts are appreciated :)
I think this impeachment inquiry is nonsense, but since the can of worms is open, how’s about we peep all serving political figures families for wrong doing and/or quid pro quo.
Let’s take a lot at those stock trades as well.
Working people are starting to wake up, politicians work for themselves first and we’re getting tired of it.
Not that it really matters for political theater, but what confuses me about all this is how can they impeach a president for something that happened before he was president?
There aren't any coherent rules on what is or isn't grounds for impeachment, just "high crimes and misdemeanors." Who determines what constitutes a "high crime" or "misdemeanor?" Congress. So if they decide he should be impeached because they didn't like the tie he wore one day, they can do that.
But everyone knows it's just theater because there's no way the Senate will confirm. This is bullying, which rallies the Republican base. The problem is that it turns everyone off and energizes Democrats, which is going to make 2024 that much harder for them. Curiously, McCarthy knows this which is why he's been resisting the impeachment process. If the "Freedom Caucus" wasn't willing to behave so recklessly and block his agenda so ruthlessly, this would never have seen the light of day.
When he wasn't a member of Government.
So the one time there is an actual political witch hunt going on in Washington, the Dems don't even blanket the media with those claims?!
We had a traitor in the White House 4 years ago who's corruption was unheard of, and yet to this day there are Republicans claiming he did nothing wrong and who still fully support Trump, and yet I guarantee you that there are Democrats out there right now ready to throw Biden to the wolves over some 100% politically motivated bullshit accusations.
This is why Democrats lose.
I thinks it’s because republicans are the only ones who actually about this impeachment. Any sensible person knows this is utterly pointless and isn’t going to do anything besides waste republican time.
Yeah, nothing anybody says is going to change what the Republicans say or do, so there's not really much point. Either you already believe their claims based on absolutely no evidence in which case nothing is going to change your opinion, or else you don't believe any of it until you see some actual evidence, in which case there really isn't anything for the Democrats to prove because you can't prove a negative. So they're taking the approach of just shut up and ignore them, because at some point they're going to have to put their money where their mouth is and actually file charges and they'll be forced to present evidence (or rather the lack thereof) and everyone will see their full of shit.
At this point the GOP is just a bunch of toddlers screaming and wailing and pounding on the floor, and the adults are all ignoring them because paying attention to them is what they want. Making a big deal and screaming "nuh uh, you're a liar" at them really isn't going to help matters at all, better to just laugh at the whole thing and continue about your day. Anyone brings it up and asks just point out there's literally nothing to say because there's no evidence that's been presented that anything they're saying actually happened.
The DNC has shot messaging. They don't promote their wins and barely communicate their platform. They let the Republicans control the narrative constantly. They just need to boil their shit down to some short punchy phrases and repeat it like the Republicans do. Their stances are more popular, they just suck at pushing them.
I agree 110%.
I'm sick of Republicans controlling the narrative in Washington. Even when they aren't in power, because they have a unified amd consistent message, they are able to get the Democrats to endlessly waste their time and resources on made-up issues that Republicans use to distract the media and the nation.
Just like how Republicans have Jebus, guns, abortion and only a handful of other initiatives, so too must Democrats focus on only a small selection of programs to throw their full weight behind. Republicans have successfully overturned RvW and loosened gun laws because year in, year out, those are things they focus on. Democrats can't focus on a single issue for more than a few weeks before they seem to get bored and jump onto the next big travesty that they'll try to solve, not really accomplish anything, and then move onto something else.
I don't because there isn't one.
Afaik, it hasn't been out to a floor vote.
Mainstream media is ridiculous when they think there is blood in the water
Afaik, it hasn’t been out to a floor vote.
No, this is just the inquiry. And McCarthy broke precedent by not putting that to a floor vote, knowing no Democrats and not many Republicans would vote for it. This is harassment, and everybody knows it. As Trump put it, it's payback for his impeachments.
Like he actually can't do that.
It's not an inquiry without a floor vote.
The House of Representatives seems to think otherwise.
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/12/mccarthy-biden-impeachment-inquiry
He can't declare Biden impeached without a floor vote. But he can start the process.
The table shows the opposite of what the article claims. Independents are most convinced of wrongdoing by the Bidens, whilst republicans are least
Seems like impeachment talk is the norm lately for the past few presidents. So meh, don't really care. Just a lot of hype and people upset that who they voted for lost.
Did you really just try to "both sides" this?
Don’t forget when Obama has his biggest scandal
Not sure what is meat by "both sides this". But from my point of view it seems no matter who gets elected lately there will be rumors of impeachment.
As a guy just living his life, I have no influence over the outcome. I doubt it will actually happen and I even doubt more it will personally affect me. So I will just continue living my life and not worry about it. Why stress out over things outside of your control?
The media will try to spin everyone up to keep people watching. This further separates everyone while fueling hate and discontent. I have my own things within my control to worry about.