On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that a formal impeachment inquiry is going to be launched, looking into President Trump’s alleged attempts to get dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden from the Ukrainian government, among other accusations levelled against the president by a whistleblower from the U.S. intelligence community.
Trump will definitely get impeached in the House. There will be the spectacle of a trial, but its conclusion is forgone.
Most Democrats supported impeaching Trump even before the latest scandal broke. Indeed, there were calls to impeach before Trump even took office! This time, they will almost certainly succeed in getting their way, as many House Democrats are facing primary challenges from the left wing of the party, and will not want to come off as protecting Trump – hence, even those who have misgivings about this tactic will vote to impeach — especially now that nine out of 10 Democratic voters favor impeachment.
Only 12 Democrats in the House continue to express skepticism about impeachment proceedings — virtually all from districts Trump carried in 2016, and nearly all of them freshmen — and the Democrats have enough votes without them.
But it will be an almost pure party line vote. The facts of the investigation are immaterial here.
A set of facts that matters more include the fact that most congressional districts today are not competitive – hence in a situation where the general population leans strongly one way, but the party base leans another, lawmakers will generally side with their base. For instance, if 70% of all Americans support impeachment but 70% of Republicans in their district oppose, most lawmakers would give far more weight to the second number than the first. Hence, the media focus on the overall support for impeachment loses the thread: if you want to know how the vast majority of Congresspeople will vote, look to the base.
President Trump has sky-high approval ratings among the Republican base. This same base just saw a three-year inquiry (or “witch hunt” as the President and his supporters described it) into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which ended with no collusion being established. As a result, the Republicans are not going to be moved by whatever comes out in the forthcoming hearing, nor by media reporting on this issue.
Because the Republican base will reject these charges and rally behind the President, GOP lawmakers will be hesitant to vote for impeachment either, regardless of the facts of the case. In many congressional districts, Trump enjoys far more support among Republican voters than the lawmakers representing those districts. As a result, voting to remove the President from office would be tantamount to voting themselves out of office – with an election fast-approaching.
Granted, we may see a few mavericks in swing districts vote for impeachment, or anti-Trump Republicans who are planning to retire anyway. Overwhelmingly, however, GOP lawmakers are going to rally behind the President. Watergate, and the wave of successful primary challenges against Republicans who broke rank and supported the investigation of Nixon, will serve as a cautionary tale for any GOP lawmakers interested in keeping their seat.
As a result, Trump will be acquitted in the Senate. This is nothing extraordinary, however. No sitting U.S. President has ever been removed from office by Congress. A couple have been impeached in the House; the Senate is where these initiatives go to die. In this case, even if 100% of Senate Democrats and Independents voted for impeachment, they would still need at least 20 more Republicans (assuming they got all Democrats and Independents to vote for impeachment) in order to reach the required two-thirds majority to remove a sitting president. That is not going to happen.
Sure, it is strictly speaking possible that the inquiry uncovers a fact so damning that it transcends partisan loyalty, or even causes the base to change its opinion of Trump. But I cannot imagine what such a revelation could possibly be. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of Americans declared they were “not surprised” or “not surprised at all” by Trump’s alleged behavior on the call.
This is precisely why Trump’s “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” comments were so depressing—they were largely accurate! As one Republican congressman vividly put it:
“Trump has said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone dead and and not lose any supporters. Well, if that happens I’d better be photographed stuffing a body into the trunk of a car, or my constituents will demand to know why I’m not supporting the president.”
Electoral Implications
Perhaps here, one may think that even if the impeachment bid fails in the Senate, perhaps it could damage Trump’s electoral prospects. If the impeachment bid fails, but the trial meaningfully contributes to his defeat in 2020 – then it would have to be judged a success even if the Senate acquits.
One may look at the historical record and think, “Andrew Johnson was impeached and lost his bid for reelection; Nixon resigned under the prospect of impeachment and then Ford lost reelection; Bill Clinton was impeached then Al Gore lost reelection.” Hence, impeachment is a good sign that the incumbent will lose (see: Lichtman).
The first problem is that none of those are meaningful precedents.
Andrew Johnson was never elected in the first place. Instead, he took office after Lincoln was assassinated; Johnson only had the position because Lincoln, a Republican, ran on a unity ticket with a Democrat as vice president. To attribute Democrats’ 1868 loss to Johnson’s impeachment is absurd: Democrats lost all presidential elections between 1860 and 1884. A much more plausible explanation, then: in the aftermath of the Civil War, Americans favored the party of Lincoln.
What about the cases of Richard Nixon (who wasn’t impeached, but only because he resigned first) and Bill Clinton? They don’t prove suitable parallels either. Both faced impeachment in their second terms.
Even if we look at their respective parties’ prospects, the fact that Gerald Ford (who was appointed, not elected) and Al Gore lost may have more to do with a public that was eager for a change after eight years of rule by one party, rather than anything to do with the impeachment per se. It is very difficult for a party to win more than two consecutive mandates — it’s happened only a handful of times since the Civil War, generally in the wake of very popular and transformational presidents (Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Reagan). This is the simplest explanation.
The impeachment theory of why Gore lost is dubious: Democrats gained seats in the House during the midterm elections, which were contemporaneous with the impeachment inquiry (which ran Oct. 8 – Dec. 19, 1998). And after Clinton was impeached, his poll numbers went up significantly. Why? Because most of the public viewed the hearings as a partisan witch hunt. If anything, Al Gore probably would have stood a better chance had he not needlessly distanced himself from the popular sitting president, thereby weakening the power of the ‘default effect’ (more on that soon). And actually, it should emphasized, Al Gore actually won the popular vote!
There’s a good case to be made that impeachment will similarly catalyze support for Trump in 2020. Even those Republicans who had grown alienated from the President as a result of his rhetoric will rally behind him now. Their narrative practically writes itself:
Democrats are scared they will lose in 2020. Hence, rather than letting the people speak in November about whether they want Trump to remain in office, Pelosi et al. are trying to circumvent the democratic process and take Trump off the ballot prior to the election.
And as a matter of fact, Democrats should be anxious going into the next election. When a party takes the White House, they tend to stay there for at least 8 years. Going all the way back to the Civil War, there was only one true exception to this rule: Jimmy Carter (1976-80), whose reelection bid was foiled by political game-changer Ronald Reagan.
Are the Democrats poised to run their own Reagan-like figure in the next cycle? Hardly. The clear frontrunner for the nomination is an Obama Administration retread. The rest of the contenders are being driven into highly unpopular positions in a misguided attempt to placate a small group of voters. Across the board, candidates are relying way too heavily on negative partisanship – which tends to depress turnout among the irregular voters Democrats need to win national elections. What the party should be doing instead is working to identify a candidate and a platform that people (including those who live outside the Boston through D.C. beltway or the West Coast) will actually be excited about. If it comes down to another ‘lesser of two evils’ race in 2020, the public will probably stick with the ‘devil they know.’
In short, this impeachment bid will almost certainly fail. There is a strong chance the president will win reelection in its wake.
The High Cost of Failure
Should Trump win in 2020, we can be assured that his second term will be far worse than the first. With the Democrats’ impeachment card already spent (in vain), his opposition will have little political leverage remaining. Almost regardless of the violation he commits, after Russiagate and one failed impeachment attempt, it is unlikely that a second impeachment bid would be any more successful than the first. Quite the contrary, it would really look like a partisan witch hunt by people who can’t take a loss if they tried to remove Trump again after he won reelection. With no future elections to worry about either, President Trump will have little to lose in any decisions he chooses to make – and he’ll probably try to go out with a ‘bang’ (God help us all).
Put another way: if voters don’t stop Trump in 2020, he will probably become unstoppable.
10/31/2019 Update
Nancy Pelosi has officially put the impeachment investigation authorization up for a vote in the House. As anticipated, it passed. As anticipated a couple Democrats in districts Trump carried in 2016 declined to play along. However, not one single Republican voted in favor opening the investigation. That is, the partisan unity was even stronger than anticipated on the Republican side.
This recent WSJ profile perhaps explains why:
“Mr. Trump heads into the impeachment inquiry—the most dangerous political waters of his presidency—with support from the vast majority of his party. Some 84% of Republicans approve of how Mr. Trump is handling his job, essentially unchanged from 86% just after he was sworn in, Journal/NBC News polling this month found. More than three-quarters of Republicans say Congress should abandon the impeachment investigation…
Compared with his first year in office, Mr. Trump is even stronger in the communities that swung most heavily behind him during the 2016 election, the Journal analysis finds — an important signal to elected officials in those communities of the costs of abandoning the president as Congress takes up impeachment.
Some 62% of voters approve of Mr. Trump’s job performance in the 450 counties in which Mr. Trump outperformed 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney by 20 points or more, Journal/NBC News polling this year finds. That is up from a job approval rating of 43% in those counties during Mr. Trump’s first year in office.”
Again, don’t be distracted by the overall support for impeachment or the overall approval or disapproval of Trump. If you want to know how Republican lawmakers will vote, look to the base.
Speaking of the base, the Trump campaign recently announced a record haul in political donations — pulling in more than twice as much money as Barack Obama did during the comparable quarter of his reelection cycle, and raising far more than all Democratic candidates and the DNC combined. This was heavily driven by small donations, which accelerated significantly in the wake of Pelosi’s initial announcement of an impeachment inquiry in late September. Within hours of the House voting to officially authorize the inquiry on October 31st, Trump raised $3 million more.
12/19/2019 Update
The president has officially been impeached in the House. Reflective of the dynamics of 10/31, there was not a single Republican defection — not one single person in the GOP voted to impeach. There were, however, four Democratic defections (Democrats who declined to support impeachment on both articles). Most strikingly, one of these defectors has actually been moved to switch to the Republican Party outright and pledge his “undying support” to Trump!
Despite Pelosi’s objections, the Senate trial looks like it will be short: no witnesses, minimal debate, and most are expecting more-or-less strict party-line vote. Again, while there might be a couple Republican defectors (such as Romney), it is patently clear that there are nowhere near enough votes to remove Trump from office.
With respect to the general public, support for Trump has risen steadily across polls since October 24 — as reflected here on FiveThirtyEight. Support for impeachment has declined, and opposition increased, to a statistical wash (especially polls about whether Trump should be impeached or removed, rather than surveys about whether there should be proceedings).
Meanwhile, the GOP fundraising boom continues as a result of the impeachment effort, with more than 600,000 individual donations made over the past week, amounting to more than $10 million.
2/4/2020 update
As predicted, Trump is poised to be acquitted in the Senate. The trial wrapped up expeditiously — without a single witness being called, or a single piece of new evidence being introduced — thanks to near-unanimous support from the GOP senators. Even those who were highly-critical of the President’s actions said they did not need to see more evidence or hear more witnesses — nor do they plan to vote to remove Trump from office.
Indeed, even one of the two Republican senators who did vote to introduce more evidence, Susan Collins, has declared that she will vote to acquit Trump as well. This leaves Mitt Romney as the only Republican senator who voted to see more evidence but hasn’t declared how he will land with respect to impeachment.
Nonetheless, there must be a 2/3 vote in the Senate in order to remove the President from office. Democrats will be nowhere near that — as predicted. It’s likely they won’t get a single Republican vote. This will all be over tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating has reached a new personal high. About half of likely voters now feel Trump deserves a second term, and public opinion of the GOP has also reached a 15-year high.
Whatever Pelosi’s political calculations were with respect to this doomed-from-the-start impeachment bid, they seem to have been ill-conceived.