Another poll shows that the vast majority of Americans oppose the President’s declaration of a national emergency to construct his border wall:
A large majority of Americans surveyed in a new poll opposes President Trump’s emergency declaration to secure billions of dollars in funding for a border wall.
The Monmouth University Poll released Thursday showed that almost two-thirds of adults — 64 percent — disapprove of Trump’s declaration, while 33 percent support it. The results are largely unchanged from January, when 64 percent disapproved of the resolution and 34 percent approved.
The poll also showed that a slim majority of respondents still opposes the building of a wall on the southern border. Fifty-one percent of those polled oppose Trump’s signature campaign promise, while 44 percent support it. Another 4 percent are unsure.
The poll comes as the Senate is set to rebuke the president and pass a resolution blocking the emergency declaration. Four Republican senators have already declared they will support the resolution, joining the Senate’s 47 Democrats to push the legislation over the needed 51-vote threshold. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the GOP defectors, said that as many as 10 more Republicans could vote to approve the House-passed resolution.
Trump has vowed to veto the resolution, and it is unlikely either chamber of Congress will be able to muster Republican support to overrule the president. Regardless, having to use his first veto on a bipartisan rebuke of his key immigration promise would be embarrassing for Trump.
The White House is waging a pressure campaign to prevent more Republicans from supporting the resolution.
“Senate Republicans are not voting on constitutionality or precedent, they are voting on desperately needed Border Security & the Wall. Our Country is being invaded with Drugs, Human Traffickers, & Criminals of all shapes and sizes. That’s what this vote is all about. STAY UNITED!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Trump declared the emergency last month to allocate roughly $8 billion for barriers along the Mexican border. He expressed frustration with a congressional funding bill that failed to meet his demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding..
These numbers, of course, are consistent with other polling we’ve seen since the President announced his national emergency when he signed the legislation ending the six-week long government shutdown. At the time, of course, even Trump admitted that the emergency declaration was entirely unnecessary and that he only made the declaration because he wasn’t happy with the amount of money that Congress had authorized for border security and that he wanted to get the task done faster. It’s also consistent with polling taken during the government shutdown — see here, here, and here — showing that a majority of Americans opposed the border wall itself. It also comes in the wake of the House of Representatives vote, largely along party lines disapproving of the emergency declaration and the likelihood that the measure will pass the Senate due to the fact that, to date, at least four Republican Senators have indicated that they will be voting with the Democrats and against the so-called “emergency.” While this is unlikely to be enough to override an expected Presidential veto, it is a sign that the President’s party, which for the most part remains obsequiously loyal, is beginning to have second thoughts about this President’s executive power grabs. In addition to this challenge from Congress, the Administration also faces lawsuits filed by sixteen states as well as a number of independent groups, and House Democrats have indicated that they took are likely to file a lawsuit against the President’s declaration as well.
At the same time, it’s clear that poll numbers like this are unlikely to deter the President from moving forward with his emergency and his plan to continue pushing for a wall that pretty much every expert on the subject agrees is unncesary, and the reason why can be found in the poll numbers themselves. Consider this from the underlying numbers in the Monmouth poll:
- On the question of whether or not respondents support or oppose building a border wall:
- 84% of Republicans support building the wall, while 13% oppose it;
- 55% of Independents support building the wall, while 44% oppose it; and,
- 80% of Democrats oppose building the wall, while 15% support it.
- On the question of the President’s use of emergency powers to get funding for the wall:
- 73% of Republicans approve of the President’s action, while 24% oppose it;
- 71% of Independents disapprove of the President’s action, while 28% support it; and,
- 93% of Democrats disapprove of the President’s action, while 6% support it
While these same polls show that most Americans and most INdependent voters oppose both the emergency declaration and the wall, the support for both among Trump’s Republican base is overwhelming. In the end, that is what this entire thing is about, appealing to the base of the GOP in anticipation of the 2020 election. Politically this isn’t really very smart, because Trump is going to need more than just his hard-core base to get re-elected, but it’s been clear from the start of this Presidency that appealing to the base is far more important to him than reaching beyond it or trying to expand that base. If it was he would be acting and governing in a far different manner. Instead, Trump clearly believes his best hope for 2020 is to keep the base riled up and enthusiastic. As long as that’s the case, you can expect his behavior and his rhetoric to become, if anything, more extreme.
