Sens Mike Lee (left) and Mitt Romney (right) (US Senate)
SALT LAKE CITY — The approval ratings for Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney are remaining steady, despite casting opposing votes in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
The findings come from a pair of Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics polls conducted during and after the trials, where Romney voted to convict Trump and Lee voted to acquit him.
In the case of Lee, roughly 45% of polled voters approve of his overall performance, while 41% disapprove and 13% aren’t sure.
For Romney, around 50% approve of his performance, while 45% disapprove and 6% aren’t sure.
“It is fair to say that the trial had little impact on Lee and Romney,” pollster Scott Rasmussen tells the Deseret News. “That’s partly because the trial was pretty unsurprising and partly because the senators did nothing out of character with their earlier comments.”
He noted both senators signaled how they would vote after the House impeached Trump in early January.
Romney still rates considerably higher among Democrats than Republicans, according to the poll.
The results come as Romney released a lengthy statement about the impeachment trial for the Congressional Record.
He says former President Trump’s “big lie” brought the nation to a “dark and dangerous” place.
“There is one untruth that divides the nation today like none other: It is that the election was stolen, that there was a massive conspiracy, more secret and widespread than any in human history, so brilliant in execution that no evidence can be found of it, and no observer among the tens of thousands in our intelligence agencies will speak of it,” he wrote.
The first-term senator voted to remove Trump from office after his first impeachment trial last year.