Trump Is Losing The Argument On Impeachment
In a new analysis this morning, Simon makes the case that right now all there is for Trump and Republicans is bad news. The President was caught betraying the country, something his own aides have confirmed on camera. He's losing the Impeachment argument with the public. Close advisors are getting investigated and arrested again, and this new SDNY/FBI investigation into Russia and his campaign will be playing out all next year it appears. He's historically unpopular, got beat badly in elections in 2018 and 2019, and is losing to Biden by 9 pts. McConnell’s promise to rig the Senate trial is a sign of panic and weakness, not confidence and strength.
Let’s drill down on two aspects of this narrative – his bad Impeachment numbers and his even worse 2020 numbers:
Impeachment - The Fox News poll released yesterday was a huge, important corrective to an emerging media narrative that things are going the Donald’s way. Its numbers were just brutal for the President and once again confirmed that there is no backlash. 54% Impeach, 50% remove, only 41% not Impeach. 53% say he abused his office and only 22% say it’s okay to solicit foreign help in an election. As historian Kevin Kruse reminds us, just a few weeks before Nixon resigned he was at 46% remove, better than Trump now. Diving into the Fox poll, which is consistent with other recent reputable polls, it is clear that Trump is not winning the Impeachment argument with the public – a big problem for him as this all heads to the Senate.
2020 - Part of the reason Trump isn’t winning the Impeachment argument is that his overall standing with the public is terrible, and he’s in far worse electoral shape today than he ever was in 2015/2016. This chart summarizes the big numbers out there right now, and they all suggest that Trump is structurally down by high single digits.
Polling Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
By comparison Trump trailed Clinton by just 3-5 points for most of the 2016 election, and Clinton’s margin was above 6 for only a few weeks during the entire 17 months they were both in the race. As Trump lost the popular vote by 2 points, 48-46, he is at least 5-6 points worse off today than he was on Election Day 2016. Using the Real Clear Politics aggregates, Biden is ahead outside of margin of error in GA, NH, MI, NC, PA, OH and WI, while AZ, FL, IA, and TX are toss ups, inside the margin of error. What all this says is that if the election were held today, Biden would beat Trump badly. Trump is right now not definitively ahead in a single 2020 battleground.
Related Readings From NDN – “To Defeat Illiberalism, Democrats Must Embrace Their Success As A Governing Party” (link here); and new pieces on Russia’s hold over Trump (link here), and how the House should split Impeachment into three parallel tracks now (link here).
