Democrats Shouldn’t Assume Impeachment Will Backfire

Aaron Blake: “Drawing hard and fast conclusions about American politics is often difficult, given the country’s relative youth. We quite simply don’t have that many elections with which to analyze the effectiveness of various political strategies. And that’s especially the case with impeachment, which has been undertaken only twice in American history. What’s more, these assumptions about impeachment are largely based upon a sample size of one: Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s.”

“As I wrote a while back, the timeline of Clinton’s impeachment seemed to work against Republicans. Having begun impeachment proceedings on the eve of the 1998 election, the initial backlash was instantly able to register at the ballot box and help Democrats score unexpected success in the midterm elections. Republicans then officially impeached Clinton on Dec. 19, 1998, and Clinton’s approval rating hit its highest mark ever — 73 percent — in a Gallup poll that was conducted starting that day.”

“But that timeline is not today’s timeline. Today, there is actually time for the impeachment proceedings to register with the American people.”