California has never been friendly political territory for President Trump and, according to a new statewide poll, a majority of Californians are ready to see him removed from office.
The survey, from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), found that 57% of all adults and 53% of likely voters are supportive of Congress impeaching and removing the president from office.
That support is especially high among Democrats (83%), women (64%), Latinos (69%), noncitizens (69%) and voters ages 18-34 (64%).
A majority of survey respondents support Trump's removal, even in the most traditionally conservative regions of the state, including the Central Valley (52%) and Orange County/San Diego (51%).
Despite that consensus, the poll found that Californians are more divided on how Congress is running the impeachment inquiry. Asked to describe their feelings about how Democrats are handling the process, 48% of likely voters said they approved while 50% said they disapproved.
Not surprisingly, the responses to that question fell largely along partisan lines, with Democrats strongly approving (76%), Republicans strongly disapproving (86%) and nonpartisans split, with 41% approving and 52% disapproving.
"For some it’s that [Democrats are] going too fast. For others it’s that they’re going too slow," said PPIC President and CEO Mark Baldassare.
He noted that support for impeachment among Republican voters hasn't budged in the last six months: It was 8% in May and remains the same in this poll.
For the poll, 1,711 California adult residents were surveyed over the phone in either English or Spanish between Nov. 3-12.
With California's presidential primary election about 15 weeks away, the poll also found that support for the top Democratic candidates remained fairly stable. Nearly a quarter of likely Democratic voters (24%) named former Vice President Joe Biden as their top choice, followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (23%) and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (17%). Significantly trailing that top-tier pack were California Sen. Kamala Harris (8%), South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (7%) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang (5%).
"I think it's been very difficult for any of the candidates to get any traction in the last few weeks in the presidential race," Baldassare said, pointing to the distracting impact of the impeachment inquiry.
"Probably the name that you hear the most [in the hearings] is Joe Biden. And so his name continues to be mentioned," he added. "But for the other candidates, they are struggling to get any time. And this, of course, affects candidates who are not in that top tier, even more so than Warren and Sanders and Biden."
