An increasing number of independent voters are starting to pay more attention to the ongoing impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Friday.
The survey found that 62 percent of independents said they are closely following the investigation, which marks an 11-point increase from an identical poll conducted Oct. 21-22.
However, the number of Democrats and Republicans who are keeping an eye on impeachment remains higher. Seventy-eight percent of those who identified as Democratic voters saying they are paying attention to the inquiry, as do 70 percent of Republicans.
The overall number of voters who said they are following the probe didn’t change, holding at 70 percent.
The survey comes as House Democrats move into the public phase of their impeachment inquiry.
Democratic lawmakers are slated to hold their first open hearings next week as they probe the president’s attempts to push a foreign government to investigate a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
House Democrats on Friday revealed new details in their investigation in the form of two more testimony transcripts from their closed-door hearings last month, in this case from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Trump’s former top Russia analyst Fiona Hill.
Both officials had voiced concerns over Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce probes into the Bidens, a move that could benefit Trump going into the 2020 election, where Joe Biden is a leading Democratic contender.
Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, meanwhile has blasted the upcoming public hearings, saying they shouldn’t take place.
“They shouldn’t be having public hearings. This is a hoax,” Trump said Friday.
The Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted online among 1,002 registered voters between Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. The margin of error for the full sampling is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
—Tess Bonn
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