Exclusive — Impeachment Backfiring: GOP Polling Memo Shows Public Turning Against Democrat Efforts to Oust Trump

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., joined by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., crit
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

A memo by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that contains internal GOP polling data shows the American public, even Democrat voters, are turning against the Democrat Party’s “impeachment inquiry” into President Donald Trump.

The memo, obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, shows independent voters nationwide en masse oppose impeachment—with 54 percent opposed and only 34 percent in favor.

“We have seen public polling drastically under sample Independent voters, which is one of the many reasons for so much incorrect public data over the past month,” the memo explains regarding the disparity between internal GOP numbers and public polling from news organizations and polling institutions.

What’s more, internal RNC polling data, according to this memo, shows Democrats have lost support among their own base significantly in just the past week.

“Support among Democrats for the ridiculous attempt to remove the President from office is down 10 points over the past week,” the memo says.

Among all voters, the memo says support for impeachment has dropped in the past week by five percent—a remarkable shift against the Democrats in just one week, while the president’s support levels have increased across the board, especially among Republicans, with whom he now enjoys a 90 percent approval rating.

The memo notes that the RNC is closely tracking impeachment support and opposition with its own sophisticated polling method, which is more accurate than the public polling.

“The RNC is tracking support for impeachment on a weekly basis using our sophisticated, battle tested voter score program,” the memo says.

The internal polling data showing impeachment failing comes towards the end of the broader page-and-a-half memo, which explains why the public polling is so different from what the RNC is finding. These unreliable public surveys range from a recent Gallup survey to a recent Fox News poll and others that somehow suggest impeachment support is on the rise since Democrats moved forward with it a month ago, when in fact it is not.

“Over the past month, many news outlets have published polls regarding the impeachment inquiry with highly inconsistent and inaccurate methodologies that lead to inaccurate top line results,” the memo opens. “This memo seeks to breakdown the methodology in recently released polls and provide insight in what to watch out for in these releases, especially when compared to the RNC’s proven internal polling. We took a look at three common issues with recent public polling.”

Under the memo’s first subheading, “Flawed Sampling Methodology,” the RNC memo explains that both the Gallup and the Fox News polls were incorrect because they used methods that do not produce accurate results.

The Gallup survey, for instance, polled just “adults”—not registered or likely voters—meaning that people who are ineligible to vote like illegal aliens could be included in the survey.

“Many of the recently released public polls don’t poll registered, or ideally, likely voters, they poll all adults, often not even verifying that they’re eligible voters,” the RNC memo continues. “For instance, the recent Gallup poll released last week, that fielded from October 1st through 13th, they admittedly surveyed 1,526 adults 18+ living in the US – this does not mean that these people are even eligible voters, much less registered or likely voters.”

The RNC memo says the Fox News poll, which has come under fire from all sides, including its fellow News Corporation publication, the New York Post, used a flawed sample-gathering method called “random digit dialing,” which is “outdated” and unreliable at best.

“Similarly, the recent Fox News poll that fielded October 6th through 8th, while they intended to survey Registered Voters, they used a wildly outdated methodology to do so – Random Digit Dialing,” the RNC memo continues. “With this methodology, there is no way to ensure that the voters contacted are actually registered voters – much like with self-reported vote intention, voters lie when asked about self-reported voter registration, and many more do not know if they are registered to vote in a given jurisdiction.”

Under the next subheading, “Bad Partisan Split,” the RNC memo rips the Fox News poll again for its inaccuracies as well as the recent Pew survey.

“Many of the recent polls released used a wildly inaccurate partisan split,” the RNC memo states, adding:

For the more egregious example, look no farther than the aforementioned Fox News Poll that fielded October 6th through 8th. The self-identified party breakdown of the poll is 48% Democrat, 40% Republican, and 12% Independent. In this poll, the high number of Democrats and low percentage of Independents drives support for impeachment.

As for the Pew poll, it is even worse than the Fox News poll.

“Looking at another recent poll that Pew released – fielding from October 1st through 13th – we see a similar issue with the partisan split,” the RNC memo says. “This survey counted 1,942 of their respondents as Democrat or Lean Democrat out of 3,487 (56%), which is a significantly higher percentage of self-identifying Democrats than is representative of the national electorate.”

The next subheading, “Historically Inaccurate,” jabs again at Fox, Pew, and Gallup—while also ripping SurveyUSA.

“If the flawed methodology this cycle weren’t enough, many of these pollsters do not have a strong track record,” the RNC memo continues. “For example, Fox News, in 2016 projected that Hillary Clinton would win the popular vote by +4%. Additionally, Pew, who also released a recent poll, projected Clinton would win the popular vote by +6 points, which was -4 points off the actual result. Another one, Survey USA, who just recently released a wildly flawed poll, projected that Clinton would win the popular vote by +10 points – a result -8 points off from the actual result. An even worse offender, Gallup, starting at the beginning of October in 2016, just flat out refused to poll the head-to-head matchup in the Presidential race.”

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