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President Trump walks toward the White House after stepping off Marine One. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
President Trump walks toward the White House after stepping off Marine One. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

California Voters Say U.S. Better Off If Trump Leaves Office

California Voters Say U.S. Better Off If Trump Leaves Office

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According to a new survey, 60 percent of California voters -- including 20 percent of Republicans -- think the United States would be better off if Donald Trump left office before the end of his term in January of 2021.

The results came in response to the question, "Which would be better for the country?" In addition to the 60 percent who want Trump to leave early, another 7 percent volunteered that they'd like to see him finish his term but not run for re-election. An additional 29 percent thought it would be best if he finished his four-year term and ran for re-election.

In all, one in three California Republicans do not want Trump to run for re-election. Sixty-two percent of Republicans would like to see Trump remain in office and seek a second term.

The survey was conducted by David Binder Research.

"This is a new depth of unhappiness with a sitting president," said pollster David Binder. "In the past, even if voters had doubts, they were more willing to wait for the next election and vote them out of office. My overall takeaway here is that voters feel we really need to get him out of office, given the chance."

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Binder's survey did not give voters an option of how Trump would leave office, say, impeachment versus resignation. Nor did they present different scenarios where those options would be more likely.

"We didn’t say what if the special prosecutor (Robert Mueller) found evidence of a crime or malfeasance," Binder said. "Then I would have expected these numbers. But even without qualifying it with a grand jury indictment, people still say the country would be better off if he left office early."

Women were slightly more likely than to men to say Trump's leaving office early would be the best option for the nation, but both men and women agreed on that point.

Breaking down the survey by age, millennials (ages 18-36) were most eager to see Trump leave office early, with 68 percent preferring that option. But even 59 percent of the oldest voters agreed that the president's early exit from office was the best option.

The survey results reflect Trump's overall approval rating in California. A PPIC survey in May found just 27 percent of Californians approved of the job Trump was doing, while 67 percent disapproved.

Last November, Trump received about 32 percent of the vote in California to Hillary Clinton's 62 percent, a 4.3 million vote margin for the Democratic nominee.

In this survey, 75 percent of voters who chose Trump last November would still like him to finish his term and run again, 10 percent would like him to leave before his term is up and another 12 percent prefer he not run for re-election in 2020.

Not surprisingly, 85 percent of Clinton supporters would like to see Trump exit the Oval Office before his term is up.

Voters who identified themselves as "conservative" were least likely to believe Trump's early departure was best for the country, with just 23 percent saying that.

Democrats are targeting seven congressional districts carried by Clinton last year that also re-elected Republican representatives. Binder thinks this survey should give Democrats hope for picking up some of those seats.

"This is showing an extremely high level of dire need to change leadership in the country," Binder said. "If it's that significant, then it generally means there will be coattails for those who oppose this president." However, Binder stressed that alone would not be enough to unseat incumbent Republicans.

The survey of 601 California voters was conducted from August 18-21 by David Binder Research. The firm works with Democratic officeholders and candidates and conducted voter focus groups for the Obama administration.

[TrumpVoterSurvey]

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