Massachusetts voters really don’t like President Trump, but that doesn’t mean they want Democrats on Capitol Hill to try to impeach him.
Sixty-one perecent of those surveyed in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll viewed Trump unfavorably — far more than any of the other politicians included in the question. Just 30 percent held a favorable view of Trump.
However, 49 percent of Mass. voters said the House of Representatives should not seriously consider impeaching Trump, according to the survey released Tuesday. Forty-two percent said they were in favor, and 9 percent were undecided.
The number of those in favor of impeachment jumped among Democrats: 63 percent said the House should consider impeachment, while 25 percent said it should not.
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“The impeachment number tells us that people want Congress to focus more on the issues,” said Suffolk’s David Paleologos, who oversaw the poll.
That sentiment was echoed by Kurt Bolgen, 34, who participated in the Suffolk poll.
“I think that impeachment in general is bad for the country. I have no use for the man who is in that office personally,” the Melrose resident said. “The issue that a president can’t be indicted was designed for a specific reason. And I just think that progressives and Democrats need to focus on governing and presenting platform options at this point.”
Calls for impeachment have been growing, especially among the 2020 Democratic primary field, as the Trump administration has refused to cooperate with congressional investigations, ignoring subpoenas related to the president’s tax returns, the unredacted Mueller report, and testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. It’s created a split among the House Democratic caucus, with some calling for impeachment and others, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, advocating a more cautious approach, fearing the move could backfire.
Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, which includes 11 Democrats, is not immune from the divide. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Seth Moulton, and Jim McGovern have called on the House to at least begin an impeachment inquiry, while the rest of the delegation has held off.
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Massachusetts is still more heavily in favor of impeachment than voters nationally. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found this month that just 22 percent of voters favored a start to impeachment proceedings.
The poll was conducted among 600 registered Massachusetts voters from June 5 to 9, and it had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Christina Prignano can be reached by christina.prignano@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @cprignano.