Pelosi Announces Impeachment, Trump’s Approval Numbers Soar

On the same day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew the national spotlight with the announcement everyone had been anticipating – that House Democrats will officially draw up articles of impeachment on Donald Trump – the president himself got a new polling number that should put the fear of God in Democrats.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Trump’s approval rating has jumped up to 52%, the highest level it has been since September. The number is a three-point improvement from Wednesday, and it shows that the impeachment inquiry is having little to no effect on President Trump’s popularity.

Trump has always polled uniquely high in Rasmussen’s surveys, but since this is the polling company that came closer than any other in correctly predicting the 2016 election, you have to give them credit where credit is due. And while the raw number might be higher for Rasmussen than the average, the trendline is identical no matter what poll you look at. The impeachment inquiry has seemingly failed to move a single voter out of the Trump camp. For Democrats, who scream until they are blue in the face that this isn’t a partisan witch hunt, it is a clear sign that most Americans just aren’t buying it.

According to the Washington Examiner, aides close to President Trump say they have nothing but optimism about the direction of this impeachment process. They were stunned by the Judiciary Committee hearings on Wednesday, where the Democrats tried to convince the public of the need to impeach by interviewing law professors.

“I’m not sure who in the majority thought that Americans wanted to be lectured by three biased law professors,” said one White House official. “The Democrats are out of touch and have never understood what the American people see in President Trump, and that was on full display. Staff watching thought it was a win for the White House and that Republicans on the committee did a fantastic job, particularly selecting [Jonathan] Turley as their witness.”

Pelosi gets a lot of credit for being a brilliant political strategist, but if this impeachment move is a sign of her intelligence, it’s not a pretty one. Unless she has some kind of hidden ace in the hole, she is leading her party to the slaughter. The articles of impeachment will die a painful death in the Republican-controlled Senate, setting Trump up with a major victory moving into the 2020 general election. And if they try to play games – sealing the impeachment or some nonsense – it will only give Republicans more ammunition to slam this process as a shamelessly political gambit.

But since she has no one to blame but herself, it’s hard to muster much sympathy.