Almost half of American voters want to see President Donald Trump impeached and removed from the White House, a new poll has found.
The NBC News/Wall Street survey released Sunday found that 49 percent of Americans support an ongoing Democratic push to impeach the Republican head of state.
A total of 46 percent of the respondents expressed opposition to Trump’s impeachment and removal from the Oval Office.
The poll found that opponents to Trump’s impeachment have shrunk by 3 percent according to another poll from earlier this month, which said 49 percent wanted him to stay in office.
Asked whether they approved of the impeachment effort, 53 said they supported the bid while 44 percent disapproved.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives opened the impeachment inquiry in late September after a whistle-blower complaint filed to congress claimed that Trump had pressured Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to investigate his possible 2020 election challenger Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, who had business interests in Ukraine.
According to the NBC News, the increase in support for Trump’s removal was observed mainly among Democrats and independents.
In fact, 89 percent of the Democrats supported the impeachment inquiry as did 58 percent of independents. The number stood at only 9 percent among Republicans.
Trump still enjoyed a majority support among independents, however, as 46 percent of them said he should stay in office while 43 percent said he should be removed.
Trump’s job approval stood at 45 percent, the poll found, adding 53 percent did not approve of the job he was doing.
Trump trailing Biden in head-to-head polls
The poll found that Trump trails Biden and other leading Democrats in head-to-head hypothetical matchup polls.
He was chasing Biden by 9 points, 50 to 41 percent, while also lagging behind Elizabeth Warren by 8 points, 50 to 42 percent.
Another poll by Fox News found that Biden remained the frontrunner among the 2020 Democratic candidates with 31 percent, followed by Warren at 21 percent and Senator Bernie Sanders trailed them at 19 percent.
The poll also showed that a year ahead of the 2020 Election Day, Trump tied or trailed several Democratic candidates.
Biden defeated the incumbent president 51 percent to 39 percent while Sanders did so 49 percent to 41 percent in hypothetical matchup, according to the poll. Warren also held a 5-point lead over the president.