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A slim majority of Americans now approve of the Democratic House-led impeachment inquiry into President Trump, a 

Fifty-two percent say they approve of the inquiry, while 43 percent disapprove. That's a slight increase in support from two weeks ago, when 49 percent approved and 46 percent disapproved. The numbers are in line with 

The uptick in support in the NPR poll comes mostly from a swing with independents.

In late September, more independents disapproved of the inquiry than approved, by a 50-44 percent margin. Now, in a reversal, more independents approve of the inquiry than disapprove, by a 54-41 percent margin, a net change of 19 points.

On the questions of whether Trump should be impeached or removed from office, Americans are split — 49-47 percent in favor of impeachment and 48-48 percent on whether the Senate should vote to remove him.

While Americans' support is growing for the impeachment inquiry, and a slim majority (51 percent) thinks the inquiry is a very serious matter and not "just politics," they are unconvinced impeachment is the right way to decide the future of Trump's presidency.

By a 58-37 percent margin, Americans think his future should be decided at the ballot box rather than by the impeachment process.

"There's a danger point in this for the White House, but also some danger points for Democrats in Congress, because people are not convinced this is the way to go," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducts the poll.

The survey was conducted from Oct. 3 through Tuesday, Oct. 8. The previous poll from Marist dealing with impeachment was conducted Sept. 25, after the White House released its record of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskiy of Ukraine, but before the whistleblower complaint was made public.

Republicans firmly against, but Americans don't approve of Trump's behavior

Republicans are dug in against the impeachment inquiry with nearly 9 in 10 disapproving of it. Two-thirds also say they would be less likely to vote for their representative from Congress if they vote to impeach Trump.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm for impeachment, Americans clearly don't approve of Trump's recent behavior, don't think he shares Americans' moral values and are pessimistic about the direction the country is headed.

For example, 68 percent say it's not acceptable to ask a foreign country's leader for help investigating a potential political opponent, including 40 percent of Republicans; 61 percent say Trump does not share the moral values most Americans try to live by; and just 35 percent say the country is headed in the right direction.

The moral values question is similar to how Americans viewed former President Bill Clinton in the year he was impeached — 62 percent said Clinton did not share Americans' moral values, according to a CBS News/

What's more, 59 percent say the identity of the whistleblower who filed a complaint about Trump's call with Zelenskiy should be protected. That includes 6 in 10 independents and about a third of Republicans.

Other answers in the survey should continue to raise red flags for the president and his reelection campaign team, including that 52 percent say they will 

vote against Trump in 2020, and just 42 percent approve of the job the president is doing.

Those numbers have barely budged and have been consistent throughout Trump's presidency. Part of the reason for the lack of movement, the pollsters say, is the lack of overall trust in institutions that the survey measured.

The courts were the most trusted (58 percent), followed by the intelligence community, including the CIA and FBI (57 percent), that elections are fair (51 percent), Democrats in the U.S. House (41 percent), the Trump administration (40 percent), Republicans in the U.S. Senate (39 percent), Congress (31 percent), and lastly, the media (29 percent).

While 70 percent of Democrats trust the intelligence community, just 54 percent of Republicans and independents do. And while 60 percent of Democrats trust the media, just 8 percent of Republicans and only a quarter of independents do.

What's more, views of Congress have changed dramatically since the impeachment of Clinton in 1998. Back then, 58 percent said they thought most members of Congress share the moral values most Americans try to live by, according to the CBS News/

Today, it's the opposite — just 37 percent say members of Congress share the moral values of most Americans, while 56 percent say they don't.

There's some evidence that Republicans are beginning to check out of news on the controversies surrounding impeachment. In the last survey at the end of September, 80 percent of Republicans said they were following the news about the impeachment inquiry at least fairly closely. In this poll, that's dropped 12 points, while Democrats and independents have essentially maintained their levels.

That helps to create a dynamic in which the GOP digs in even more.

"We're in a period of time that the institutions that guided us through these processes are not trusted," Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll said of impeachment during the Clinton and Nixon years. "There's really a lack of trust among those institutions, so that makes this uncharted terrain, because people are being guided by whose side that they think they are on."

Biden, the Ukraine controversy and who impeachment could help or hurt

President Trump has continued to accuse former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter of wrongdoing in Ukraine, though evidence does not support those claims. Trump has pointed to the Bidens' "corruption" amid accusations of his own wrongdoing in dealing with the country.

Most people, by a 50 percent-28 percent margin, think that effort will hurt Biden. His favorability rating has ticked down slightly from 

to 41 percent now — within the poll's margin of error.

The controversy has not hurt Biden with Democrats, but there's been a slight eroding with independents and Republicans. In September, Biden had a 72 percent/20 percent positive rating from Democrats, and now, it's a near-identical 71 percent/19 percent.

Among independents, though, it went from 43 percent/48 percent positive to 39 percent/46 percent; and among Republicans, it was 21 percent/72 percent positive in September and is 16 percent/74 percent now.

By a 45-42 percent margin, Americans say Biden shares their moral values. That's higher than Trump, but clearly the jury is still out, suggesting that Biden's response to the controversy over the next several weeks before the first voting in the Democratic nominating contest will be critical.

Overall, Americans are split 44-43 percent on whether impeachment will help Democrats or whether it will help Trump.

How impeachment is handled could be crucial in determining who Americans want to put in charge of Congress after 2020 as well. Democrats have just a 3-point advantage, 43-40 percent, on the question of which party's candidate people would vote for in their district if the elections were held today.

That's half of what it was in November 2018 (50-44 percent), just Democrats took back the U.S. House by sweeping a net of 40 seats out of Republican hands in the midterms.

Methodology: The poll of 1,123 Americans was conducted with live telephone Oct. 3 through Oct. 8, 2019. The margin of error for the overall sample is 3.4 percentage points. Party affiliation results reflect the 926 respondents who identified as registered voters, and the margin of error is 3.8 percentage points.

Politics and Government News

Trump impeachment

Domenico Montanaro

Author

A slim majority of Americans approve of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, but even more think President Trump's future should be decided at the ballot box, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.

Andrew Harnik | AP Photo

Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden

Poll: Independents move in favor of impeachment inquiry; GOP stays firmly against

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