Donald Trump has a whole new impeachment problem

| 4:30 pm EST December 26, 2019
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Donald Trump keeps insisting, in tweet after increasingly frantic tweet, that the House impeachment process has helped his poll numbers and hurt the Democrats’ 2020 prospects. The thing is, it’s just not true. Around the time the House was ratifying the articles of impeachment against Trump, the polls showed that impeachment was roughly as popular as ever.

Now that the public has had an opportunity to step back for a week and let impeachment set in, the first major post-Christmas poll shows that 55% of Americans want Donald Trump impeached and removed. That’s an all-time high for this poll, which comes from MSN.

Palmer Report always likes to caution readers against looking at one new poll as if it were the only poll, as the polling averages are what really tell the story. But in this instance the MSN is roughly in line with the averages to begin with, and it’s shifting in the direction that pro-impeachment numbers have been shifting in all along. In other words, we can expect that more new polls released in the coming days will also show continued pro-impeachment sentiment.

There’s a reason why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi feels that she can withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate until she gets trial fairness concessions: the polls say she has the upper hand in the court of public opinion. There’s also a reason why Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is attacking Mitch McConnell for vowing to hold a sham trial: the polls say that she and her fellow Republicans in the Senate have to worry about voters punishing them in 2020 if they’re seen as complicit in letting Trump off the impeachment hook.