President Donald Trump arrives with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr to speak about the census in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

If Democrats were hoping last week’s hearings were going to push public opinion further in their favor, they’ll be disappointed to learn that’s not happening. In fact, support is going the opposite way, dropping below the majority claims of support for impeachment just a month ago.

Support for “impeach and remove” is at 46.7% support. The lowest since the story snowballed in early October.

Opposition to the impeachment inquiry process is at 44.7%. The highest since early October. https://t.co/iuUvCv17WC

— Daniel Vaughan (@dvaughanCI) November 16, 2019

Support for the impeachment inquiry (not necessarily removal, but just the House process) was enjoying support in the 60% range not too long ago. Now, we are seeing almost 45% of Americans outright reject the process altogether. That’s a pretty big shift. Further, support to impeach and remove the President, which had peaked over 50% is now falling, down to 47%.

The splits within the polling are interesting in so far as the consolidation we are seeing. In general, what we are seeing in these numbers is almost all Democrats wanting to remove Trump and almost all Republicans disagreeing. Not shocking, but it’s important to remember that wasn’t the case in October, where a not insignificant number of Republicans were supportive of both the inquiry and removal.

Some of this you could chalk up to good economic news and a weariness of the constant headlines. But I think the more likely reason support for impeachment is slipping is that it’s becoming clear how flimsy the case is. As streiff shared earlier this evening, the Democrats’ star witnesses include several people who admit to having no evidence of anything and a staffer who claims to have overheard a call in a farcical tale. Even then, there was no mention of military aid or a quid pro quo.

Americans are starting to ask what exactly are we doing this for. There’s an election coming up in less than a year. Removing President Trump over what’s currently known would be ludicrous no matter how many times people try to connect dots that simply haven’t been factually connected yet.

The real question is whether this impeachment push will backfire given that we are already seeing support slip. What happens once Trump is acquitted in the Senate? Or if the Democrats somehow can’t even gather the votes to send it there? That’s the wildcard in all this. No doubt, Trump has been harmed in the short term, but voters have extremely short memories. When impeachment crashes and burns in the near future, there will likely be a reckoning for dragging the country through this.

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