How to weaponise polls.
As we all know, even if the House impeaches Trump, he cannot be removed unless 2/3 of Senators vote to convict which would require at least 20 GOP senators.
Part of convincing the GOP to abandon Trump is showing that voters support impeachment. You have had a lot of stories over the past weeks about polls that show a jump in support for impeachment, usually without a link to said poll so you cannot make your own assessment, for example news story on the NPR/PBS/Marist poll:
Quote:
Early Polling Suggests Opinion May Be Shifting Toward Favoring Trump Impeachment
The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found 49 percent approve of impeachment, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. Although still just shy of 50 percent, the poll shows a 10-point surge in favor of impeachment compared to the same survey in April
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...peachment.html
However, when you actually dig down into the poll results, you see nothing has actually changed and GOP support for Trump is still rock solid:
http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-cont...000.pdf#page=3
-90% of Republicans still approve of the job Trump is doing;
-93% of Republicans disapprove of the House starting an impeachment inquiry;
-85% of Republicans think the House impeachment inquiry is just politics;
-69% of Republicans think it is not a serious matter, just politics that "...Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate a potential political opponent, Joe Biden.."(btw, notice that it is a leading question);
-85% of Republicans think it is not worth it for the House to impeach Trump if Senate Republicans will not vote to convict.
It is basically the overwhelming support of Dem voters for impeachment which is bumping up the poll support, but none of them will vote for Trump anyway.
With numbers like these, it is wishful thinking to think the GOP Senators will vote to remove Trump.