Most Texans Agree Paxton’s Impeachment Is Justified, UT Poll Shows

The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has gained a lot of attention in this year’s legislative session. 

As the state awaits the Texas Senate to release the impeachment trial rules, a new poll shows that the majority of Texas’s registered voters think that the House was justified in introducing and impeaching the AG on 20 articles of impeachment. 

The poll conducted by the Texas Politics Project at UT Austin, shows that 50% of the voters think the impeachment was justified, while 17% say it wasn’t. Whereas 33% voters hold no opinions or knowledge on the matter. 

The three-term incumbent was impeached by the Texas House on May 27, by a vote of 121-23 and is currently suspended without pay.

The Senate met yesterday to discuss the rules surrounding the historically unprecedented trial. 

The poll was conducted from June 2nd to 12th, found Republicans closely split, where 31% said that the impeachment is justified, 30% thought it was not. Although, the majority 39% had no opinions on the matter. 

Democrats had a more uneven view on the matter, nearly three quarters of the voters thought the House was justified in impeaching Paxton. Whereas 6% thorough it was not justified and 21% had no opinions on the matter. 

Independents had an equitable view, 40% thought that the impeachment was justified, however, only 15% thought it wasn’t. A plurality, 44% had no opinion on the matter. 

The poll was conducted among 1,200 self-identified registered voters in Texas with the margin of sampling error for the full sample is  +/- 2.83%. 

According to the polls conducted by Texas Politics Project, Paxton’s job approval ratings have declined since before the impeachment. In April, he had the approval of 39% of Texas voters and disapproval from 35% (net +4). 

In June, since his impeachment, the polling finds him with an approval rating of 31% and disapproval rating of 41%. 

Paxton’s job approval dropped among his fellow partisans as well, his job approval among Republicans decreased to 13% from 65% between April and June. 

According to the Texas Politics Project polling data going back to June 2021, these are Paxton’s worst overall job approval ratings. 

The impeachment trial is due to start sometime before Aug. 28.