An opinion survey conducted by President Trump’s campaign pollster found Americans in battleground states overwhelmingly believe it is important that Mr. Trump lead “an orderly and peaceful transition” to his successor, President-elect Joe Biden, according to a memo obtained by CBS News.
Nearly nine in 10 voters polled said it was important or very important that the transition of power be conducted in a peacefully and orderly manner. The survey was taken on January 10 and 11, just days after rioters wearing Trump-emblazoned clothing laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, resulting in six deaths.
President Trump has called for an end to the violence and acknowledged there would be a new administration but has so far refused to congratulate or concede to Mr. Biden. House Democrats — now joined by a handful of Republicans including Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a member of House GOP leadership — say the president’s provocations are grounds for impeachment.
But 77% of voters surveyed said they would rather that Congress focus on dealing with the coronavirus pandemic this week than impeach President Trump (23%). The House plans to vote on his impeachment Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the president said this second impeachment vote would cause “tremendous anger and division and pain…at this very tender time.”
The poll sampled voters in the 17 states deemed competitive by the Trump campaign and was weighted to reflect 2020 turnout. National polling shows a slight majority of Americans support removing Mr. Trump from office for his inflammatory rhetoric.
Voters in the survey took a dim view of impeaching Mr. Trump after he leaves office. Seventy-four percent agreed that doing so would be politically motivated to “prevent the president from running again, stripping his Secret Service protection, and preventing him from having a Presidential Library.”
The polling memo was written by John McLaughlin, a longtime pollster for the president, and sent to Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller on Tuesday.
McLaughlin’s survey also asked questions about companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter, which permanently suspended the president’s handle last week. Facebook had previously imposed an indefinite ban on the president’s account.
“I think Big Tech has made a terrible mistake and it’s very, very bad for our country,” the president said Tuesday before departing for a trip to Texas. “But there’s always a counter move when they do that.”
Among battleground voters, 70% said these so-called Big Tech firms have “too much power and need to be regulated to protect the freedom and privacy of Americans,” according to the memo. A slightly higher percentage said Big Tech can strip the “right to free speech for any American” if they can do it to the president.
The poll surveyed 800 people who voted in the 2020 election in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Joe Biden carried 12 of these 17 states. The poll found President Trump has a 49% job approval rating in those battlegrounds.
