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This will be Trump's defense in the Senate 1:07
(CNN) - About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to condemn President Donald Trump and remove him from office at the next political trial (51%), according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 45% say the Senate should vote against conviction and dismissal.
Almost seven out of 10 (69%) say that the trial must have the testimony of new witnesses who did not participate in the political trial investigation of the House of Representatives. And as Democrats in the Senate seek to persuade at least four Republican senators to join them in voting on allowing witnesses at trial, Republicans divide themselves over this issue: 48% say they want new witnesses, while 44% say no.
READ: What we know and don't know about Trump's political trial in the Senate
This is the first major national telephone survey since the impeachment charges were sent to the Senate, which formally initiated Trump's trial. They are also the first results of a survey since Soviet businessman Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, publicly implicated the president in the campaign to pressure Ukraine during a series of television interviews.
The new survey also finds that the majority of Americans believe that each of the charges for which Trump will face a trial is true: 58% say Trump abused the power of the presidency to obtain an inappropriate personal political benefit and 57 % say it is true that it obstructed the House of Representatives in its investigation of political judgment.
Party Divisions
The huge partisan division continues to dominate the views on Trump and his political judgment. Overall, 89% of Democrats say the president should be removed from office, while only 8% of Republicans say the same. Among the independents, it is almost a draw: 48% say the Senate should vote to dismiss it, while 46% say they should not do so. Opinions about whether Trump should be dismissed are also divided equally in key states: there are 49% of opinions on each side in the 15 states decided by 8 points or less in 2016. Those states are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Beyond partisanship, there are broad divisions in the survey by gender, race, education and age. Nearly six out of 10 women (59%) say that the Senate should remove Trump from office; 42% of men agree. Among the black community, 86% say Trump should be removed. That figure falls to 65% among Hispanics and 42% among whites.
Combining race and gender, approximately eight out of 10 black women (79%) say it should be removed. That falls to 59% among non-white men, 49% among white women and 33% among white men. For whites, education adds another degree of division: 59% of white women with university degrees say the Senate should dismiss Trump, compared with 43% among white women without degrees, 44% among men whites with degrees and 27% among white men without university studies. A majority (56%) of those under 45 say that the president should be dismissed, while older Americans divide more evenly (47% in favor among those over 45, 50% against).
As the focus of the political trial process was moved to the Senate controlled by Republicans, 54% say they disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress handle the political trial procedures, while 39% approve it. Democrats in Congress also receive more disapproval (50%) than approval (46%) for their handling of political judgment. However, Democrats are more likely to approve the dismissal of their own party (83% of Democrats approve of how Democrats are handling it) than Republicans (78% of Republican voters approve Republican handling of topic). Nearly six in 10 Americans disapprove of Trump's impeachment management (57%).
Still, a majority (53%) say that Republicans in the Senate are likely to conduct a fair trial for the president. Half say that the Democratic impulse for new witnesses is mainly to guarantee a fair trial (50%), 39% say that the effort is mainly to harm the Republican Party in the 2020 elections.
The survey finds a decline in participation that says the ongoing political trial procedures will help Trump's chances in his next re-election offer (from 32% who said so in December to 28% now). That change stems largely from Republicans changing to say the impeachment will not make a difference in Trump's chances. In December, 54% of Republicans thought it would help, now that figure is 46%, and the proportion that says it won't matter has increased from 32% to 45%.
But as the trial approaches, Trump's overall approval rating remains in exactly the same place as in December: 43% approve it, while 53% disapprove.
On other topics
Since December, the Senate has voted to ratify the new North American trade agreement that the President negotiated with Canada and Mexico, known as USMCA or T-MEC. His approval ratings for the management of foreign trade are now the best of his presidency, with 45% approval and 46% disapproval. However, their numbers in the economy have not changed, but they are still the best in any subject, with 55% approval.
Trump's ratings for handling the situation with Iran are now higher than in June, when the issue was last included in a CNN survey. In general, 42% approve and 53% disapprove, compared to 37% approving and 51% disapproving last summer.
Approximately half (49%) of Americans say that the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the United States was justified, 45% say it was not justified. Nine out of 10 Republicans say yes (90%), while 50% of independents and 17% of Democrats agree.
The president's approval ratings on his handling of terrorism have also increased, 49% now approve it compared to 42% at the end of 2017, and his disapproval ratings have decreased for his handling of the role of commander in chief (of the 57% in October to 53% now).
Iran's perceptions as a threat have skyrocketed since the beginning of last year, according to the survey, returning to where they were at the beginning of 2018. Overall, 43% consider Iran to be a very serious threat, compared to 28% in May. 2019. Much of that change comes among the Democrats. In May last year, 22% of Democrats rated Iran as a very serious threat; Now, 50% say the same. Among independents and Republicans, those numbers have risen 8 points, but are well below 50%, with 40% of independents and 39% of Republicans saying they consider Iran a serious threat.
That pattern seems to be valid for both Russia and North Korea. Although the general perceptions of the threat posed by these two countries have softened somewhat, the Democratic concern has remained stable or increased as Republican concerns diminish.
The CNN survey was conducted by SSRS from January 16 to 19 among a random national sample of 1,156 adults contacted by landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer. The results for the entire sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
Donald Trump political trial
