America's Talking - Poll: Only 22% of Likely Voters Confident Biden Is Innocent of Corruption Allegations

Episode Date: January 20, 2024

One-third of Americans say that President Joe Biden is guilty of corruption and should be impeached, including some Democrats, according to a new poll. The Center Square Voter’s Voice Poll found that 34% of likely voters say “Joe Biden is guilty of corruption and should be impeached.” An additional 35% said it’s not clear if the president did anything wrong but that a Republican-led House investigation into the president should continue. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Vice President of News and content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today, as he does each and every week is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper. How are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? I am doing well, thank you. We are recording this on Friday, January 19th. Casey at the Center Square, we do some polling, some national polling. We team with Noble Predictant Insights, one of the most respected polling companies in the country. And you wrote a couple of stories off of that poll this week. One, the U.S. House has been investigating President Joe Biden and his connection to his son's business dealings overseas, calling it an official impeachment inquiry.

But we ask voters what they thought about it. Is it legitimate? Is it just a political witch hunt against the president by Republicans in Congress? And I found the results interesting. Why don't you share with our listeners? Sure. I mean, I want to say very quickly that these are really high quality polls as well as we get into this data. You know, some polls will poll a few hundred people, maybe a thousand. But our poll is 2,500, even number of Republicans and Democrats. So it is really high quality. It's not box. us. It's not like we only ask Republicans or only ask Democrats. We do have an even spread here, and we talk to a lot of people. So I am proud of this poll and feel confident talking about its results. With that said, what are the results? Well, maybe most interestingly is this, which was at thecenter square.com, we wrote about this, but only 22% of likely voters, that's not Republicans, likely voters across all parties, are confident that Biden is innocent of his corruption allegations, which is kind of an amazing statistic to me. I mean, as our listeners likely know,

the president is accused of, you know, raking in more than $20 million through his son, Hunter Biden, who allegedly went around the world and made deals with his father's name in countries like China, Ukraine, Russia, you know, some adversarial or questionable nations, not exactly our closest allies. And so while, and this is going on, there's real questions about how much the president knew and whether he financially benefited. There are, there's evidence of payments going to the president and there's, there's other evidence we can get into if we want. But that is the reason for this question about corruption. You know, there's an ongoing impeachment inquiry into the president led by House Republicans on this issue. And so if you want to

break down the data, the Center Square Voters Voice poll found that 34% of likely voters say that Biden is guilty of corruption and should be impeached. All right. So 34% say he's definitely guilty. and an additional 35% said it's not clear if he did anything wrong, but that the investigation should definitely continue. And then only 22% said, no, he's definitely innocent. This investigation is a sham. We need to end it. And so that's definitely the minority position. And before I hand it back to you, Dan, what maybe is most interesting is that 40% of Democrats said they're not clear about the allegations and said the investigation should continue. So this House investigation led by Republicans that was much, maligned when it began. Actually, 40% of Democrats say they want it to continue. All interesting stuff. Casey, let me go back to the polling results of all voters, Republicans, Democrats, true independence. You can, you know, 34% as you mentioned, say they do believe Biden is guilty of corruption. Thirty-five percent sent they're not sure, but the investigation

continued. Combining that number, that's 69 percent of Americans, Democrats, Republicans, and independence. I think there's enough fire there, at least, for this impeachment inquiry to continue. Of course, Democrats in Congress say it's just a political maneuver during an election year. Of course, President Biden is the likely Democratic nominee to be on the ballot in November seeking re-election. And then when you go down to that Democratic split, too, 9% of Democrats, a much smaller number, of course, than the overall electorate. feel that he is guilty of corruption. But 40% say, hey, there's enough smoke there that we should continue the investigation. That's 49% between the two. That's almost 50% of Democrats.

So that did kind of surprise me. We've got another poll to talk about Casey, but any final comments on the impeachment investigation. Yeah, I mean, to your point about it being politically motivated, I find that kind of a common but almost funny point to me, because in some sense, Of course, it's politically motivated. But that doesn't mean that there's not actually a crime has been committed. I think the indictments and the charges against former President Trump are almost certainly politically motivated as there is certainly some kind of political motivation against Biden. But that doesn't mean that either one is innocent or guilty. And political investigations, there's always going to be some kind of political motive.

So the facts are really what we have to pay attention to. And I'll just point out that on this whole issue of corruption before you get to the next poll, we found that corruption, in the government was a top issue for voters, not the very top, you know, but it outperformed issues like when you ask Americans what they're most concerned about, more said corruption than national security, for instance. Now, the corruption issue did not beat out the usually and reliably high performers like the economy, but I thought it was interesting that corruption is taken such a top spot. And it's probably because the two candidates are facing some kind of criminal or legal trouble. So moving on to the other poll has to do with Biden's

approval rating. Biden's been underwater when it comes to how voters feel about his job performance for quite a while. The latest poll, the latest the center square voter's voice poll conducted this month, backs that up. And of course, this is an election year. President Biden will face the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump in November in a rematch of 2020. But Americans aren't real happy with the job Biden's doing. Tell us about that. Yeah, I mean, so these numbers can't make anyone in the Biden campaign feel very safe going into the November election. Our poll found that 59% of likely voters disapprove of the job that Biden is doing. It's president and only 39% say they approve.

If you break it down, my men and women, it's similar, but kind of interesting. More men disapprove of Biden. 64% of men disapprove women, it's about 56% disapprove of Biden's job. Still, you know, maybe there's a deviation there. but the majority of both genders disapprove of the president. What's one really interesting demographic breakdown here, Dan, is that 59% of Hispanics disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president, you know, which is almost on par with the national average, almost exactly on par with the national average, which is really interesting

because the conventional wisdom, you know, maybe 10 years ago was that Hispanics were going to be natural Democrat voters who were going to just en masse register in the Democratic Party. But we're seeing this polling and other things that we find in our poll seem to suggest they're at least split down the middle. And they actually do like Trump, you know. And in the same poll conducted this month, Casey, that you wrote about earlier about a week or so ago. As you mentioned, former President Donald Trump has a lead over current President Biden if they were to match up again in November. And Hispanics, the Hispanic vote, they favored Trump in that particular poll. Am I right about that?

That's right. Yeah, you are. Trump has 45% of support among Hispanics, where Biden only has 38%. So it's a 7% lead for Trump over Biden. And it's interesting, you know, before any GOP campaign hacks or flax who are listening, get too excited. It seems like the Hispanic demographic here in our polling. They really like Trump, but that doesn't mean they necessarily like all of Republicans. When you go down to a generic ballot and ask Hispanics to choose just between your average Republican and your average Republican,

your average Democrat, it's much closer to even. But when it comes to choosing between Biden and Trump, Trump definitely has a big edge on Biden. Well, as usual, Casey, thank you for your insight into this. Listeners can keep up with the Center Square Voters Voices Poll and more at thecenterSquare.com. But we are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McHale. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening. Enjoying our podcast, your reviews help other listeners find our show. Please, leave you. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.