President Donald Trump has hinted numerous times that he is not ruling out running for a third term, despite the Constitution explicitly forbidding it. Although he has claimed that his base would be thrilled at a 2028 ticket, a new poll shows that the majority of Americans would oppose it.
Those results come from the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, conducted April 18-22 in English and Spanish among 2,464 adults. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
A broad 62% of Americans say the president is serious about a third term, even though the Constitution prohibits him from running again. Nevertheless, the poll suggests that 80% of Americans oppose a potential third term, while only 18% would support it.
Opposition to a third term is substantial even among some of the key support groups that elected Trump last fall, including white men without four-year college degrees (74% of whom oppose another Trump term), white evangelical Protestants (70%), conservatives (67%) and Republicans (60%).
Interestingly, wishful thinking is likely playing an important role in these results, ABC News analyzes. Among Republicans who think Trump is serious about a third term, support for the idea rises to 60%. That compares with 24% among Republicans who don't think he's serious. On the other hand, a vast majority of Democrats (88%) think he's serious about a third term; nearly none of them (3%) support it.
The recent poll comes amid contradicting comments from the president about the possibility of running for a third term. Last month, when asked aboard Air Force One about his comments to NBC that he's "not joking" about a third term, Trump said "I'm not looking at that but I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term," according to a White House pool report.
But this week, in an interview with The Atlantic, Trump said a third term "would be a big shattering." He continued, "well, maybe I'm just trying to shatter." But he added, "it's not something that I'm looking to do. And I think it would be a very hard thing to do." Last week, the Trump organization started selling at least two "Trump 2028" products on its online stores, including a red hat for $50 and a $36 T-shirt that also says "Rewrite the Rules."
The recent poll also surveyed respondents in other controversial issues that Trump has shown interest in, such as taking control of Greenland and Canada, as well as sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to foreign prisons.
When it comes to taking over other territories, 53% of Americans think he is serious about taking over Canada, while 68% think the same of Greenland. At the high end, a vast 86% oppose the plans on Canada, while 76% oppose those of Greenland. Trump insisted in an interview last week that he wasn't trolling about trying to take control of both of these countries.
On sending American citizens to foreign prisons, like El Salvador's infamous CECOT mega-prison, 71% of Americans think he is serious about these plans, with 66% of respondents opposing them.
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