How Many Senate Seats Will The Ukraine Call Help The Democrats Gain?

UPDATE: Here's the devastating whistleblower complaint that will help send Trumpanzee and his regime and family packing. Smoking gun? Judge for yourself... but I've never seen anything like it.

According to the most recent Morning Consult state tracker-- before the Ukraine story even broke, let alone the incriminating partial transcript-- there are Senate races in 9 contested states where Trump's approval is underwater:

• Arizona-- Martha McSally (R)- minus 4
• Colorado-- Cory Gardner (R)- minus 18
• Georgia-- David Purdue + open seat (R)- minus 1
• Iowa-- Joni Ernst (R)- minus 9
• Maine- Susan Collins (R)- minus 13
• Michigan-- Gary Peters (D)- minus 13
• Minnesota-- Tina Smith (D)- minus 14
• New Hampshire-- Jeanne Shaheen (D)- minus 20
• North Carolina-- Thom Tillis (R)- minus 2

Then there are Alaska and Montana, where Trump's approval has cratered-- down 23 points in each state since he took office and now even between approval and disapproval, setting up an excellent context for an Al Gross win against Trump ally Dan Sullivan in Alaska and a more murky situation in Montana where Steve Daines (R) could be vulnerable to Wilmot Collins (D).

What's changed entirely since that poll was taken was, in the words of Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, "The entire universe has shifted for House Democrats. For months, the leadership was trying to stave off impeachment because they thought it unwise politically, divisive and unnecessary. Now the leadership is full-bore behind it, and the entire caucus is rowing toward a process aimed at removing the president of the United States for how he handled interactions with the leader of Ukraine. Democrats finally believe they found a simple, easy-to-understand charge... The Judiciary Committee now is all but guaranteed to report out an impeachment package in the next few months-- a set of articles charging the president with high crimes and misdemeanors... [T]he full House will get a chance this year to cast a vote or a set of votes about whether the president committed crimes worthy of his removal."

The Associated Press reporters Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller wrote yesterday that though Trump claims impeachment could help his electoral chances, he reacted on Tuesday with a cascade of angry tweets that accused Democrats of engaging in "a witch hunt" and "presidential harassment." [Needless to say, that fury and whining continued into Wednesday.]

The West Wing and Trump’s informal advisers have been divided over how to handle the story, according to the accounts of eight people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. Trump spent part of Monday night consulting with family members and confidants over what to do next.

The president has alternately vented about what he sees as media and Democratic attempts to overplay the Ukraine story line while believing that the episode will work against his political foes. Frustrated by the rapid pace of developments and how they have overshadowed his time at the United Nations, Trump said he believed this was the Democrats trying to get a “do-over” after failing to take him down with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

For nearly a year, the White House as an institution and Trump personally have been goading Democrats to open impeachment proceedings. They’ve refused document requests and ignored subpoenas from Congress, claiming broad executive privilege to prevent the testimony of administration officials and even of people who’ve never formally worked at the White House.

His strategists have long believed impeachment could be a victory: that the American public would view the move as a purely partisan maneuver that would work against Democrats as it did for Republicans when they went that route against Bill Clinton 20 years ago.

Clinton was not facing reelection; Trump will be on the ballot in 14 months. Moreover, while Trump has largely been convinced by aides that impeachment could be good for his political future, the superstitious, legacy-minded president has told confidants that he is worried that, even if the GOP-controlled Senate were to acquit him as expected, impeachment would become the first line of his political obituary.

As word of the whistleblower complaint slowly made its way through the White House, initial concerns about what the president said on the call quickly gave way to the same sense of defiance that has defined the administration’s interactions with Congress. One administration official said there were intense divisions among the West Wing staff and lawyers on whether to release the transcript, a move they believed would exonerate the president but set a dangerous precedent for future administrations. It also could ease the very tensions with Congress that the White House has seen to be politically advantageous.

Even while Trump was weighing whether to authorize the release, he insisted to those around him that the transcript would clear him of any wrongdoing. And he and his closest allies believe that when more is known about the Biden family’s involvement in Ukraine, it could damage the electoral prospects of the one candidate Trump himself has mused could peel off some his support among white working-class voters in the Midwest.

By Tuesday, as it became clear that House Democrats were set on an impeachment inquiry, Trump approved release of the “unredacted” transcript. “You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call,” he tweeted between meetings at the United Nations. “No pressure.”

Most aides believe that Trump’s vague, wink-wink style of speaking would not lend itself to the discovery of a smoking gun in the transcript. But it’s possible the White House will authorize the release of the entire whistleblower complaint to Congress by the end of the week.

As Democrats pursue impeachment, Trump and his allies believe it could make him a martyr in the eyes of his faithful, providing the necessary motivation to bring his supporters to the polls in droves. Trump’s reelection strategy hinges on turning out die-hard supporters who are unreliable voters rather than winning over skeptics at the center of the electorate. Trump is betting that anger at what he claims is Democratic mistreatment will prove to be a political motivator, and that impeachment proceedings will only add to the nation’s pox-on-both-houses view of Washington.

After Pelosi’s Tuesday afternoon announcement, the president and his reelection team swung into high gear, releasing a series of tweets attacking Democrats, including a video of presidential critics like the speaker and Rep. Ilhan Omar discussing impeachment. It concluded with a message for the Trump base: “While Democrats ‘Sole Focus’ is fighting Trump, President Trump is fighting for you.”

But while the campaign set a confident tone, the angry tweets from the Trump Tower penthouse kept coming as the last light faded from the Manhattan sky.

Fighting for you? Not quite. Trump has said he will shut down the entire functioning of government in revenge for impeachment hearings. His press secretary: "House Democrats have destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country by continuing to focus all their energy on partisan political attacks. Their attacks on the President and his agenda are not only partisan and pathetic, they are in dereliction of their Constitutional duty. Americans deserve elected officials who focus on key issues to improve the lives of families, strengthen our communities, grow our economy, and keep our country safe. In President Donald J. Trump they have someone who has not only focused on those goals, but delivered results." I wonder who they think they're fooling... other than the 38% of American voters who still support Trump.

A new Quinnipiac Poll was released yesterday, showing only 38% of registered voters say he's doing good job, while 55% say he's doing a bad job. Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein wrote that he expects the public's disapproval of impeachment to change as more of Trump's criminal behavior is exposed. "The more that highly visible Democrats are united in favor of impeachment," he wrote, "the more that Democratic voters and independents who dislike Trump will likely shift toward their position. I wouldn’t be surprised if that shift happens rapidly, at least if the news media gives saturation coverage to the story and voters start to learn more about it. I think it’s a lot less likely that Trump’s popularity will change. Yes, President Richard Nixon’s approval ratings dropped dramatically over the course of the Watergate scandal. But there are a lot of differences, starting with the fact that Trump has a lot less ground to lose. It’s possible that new facts could push mild Trump supporters into being mild Trump opponents (and so on for other levels of support), but I wouldn’t count on a lot of that. What really could hurt Trump would be if numerous high-profile Republicans turned against him. That’s unlikely, because those Republicans know that the less popular Trump is, the worse off all party candidates will be in the next election. But if Trump’s approval ratings are going be harmed, that’s how it’ll happen. Assuming Trump survives and becomes the Republican nominee next year, the effects of impeachment per se on the presidential election will probably be small and possibly nonexistent. We don’t know how long any impeachment and trial would last, but voters tend to have shockingly short memories."

The real question is how Trump's toxicity will impact congressional elections. After impeachment proceedings against Nixon forced him to resign, the midterms yielded 30,054,097 votes (57.5%) for the Democrats and 21,271,332 (40.7%) for the Republicans, a decrease of 5.8% from 1972. That resulted in a gain of 49 seats in the House, bringing their majority to 291 (vs 144 for the GOP). Vote total for the Republicans in Senate races that year were even worse-- down 12.8%, which resulted in a net loss of 4 seats, which left the Democrats with massive a 60 to 38 majority. Notably, Gary Hart beat Republican incumbent Peter Dominick in Colorado, Richard Stone (D) ousted Ed Gurney (R) in Florida, Wendell Ford ousted Marlow Cook in Kentucky, Patrick Leahy (D) ousted Republican George Aiken in Vermont. Notable Democratic gains in the House included the elections of future stars like Henry Waxman (CA), Chris Dodd (CT), Abner Mikva (IL), Paul Simon (IL), Tom Harkin (IA), Paul Tsongas (MA), Jim Oberstar (MN), Max Baucus (MT), Jim Florio (NJ), William Hughes (NJ), James Scheuer (NY), Stephen Solarz (NY), Harold Ford, Sr. (TN) and Jack Hightower (TX).

The congressional election in 1998-- after the Republicans got even for the impeachment of Nixon by impeaching Clinton on trumped-up charges that didn't stand up in the Senate-- worked out very differently. Republicans were expecting big wins. Instead the Democrats gained a net of 5 seats, bringing Barbara Lee (CA), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Dennis Moore (KS), Rush Holt (NJ), Tom Udall (NM), Joe Crowley (NY), Anthony Weiner (NY), Joe Hoeffel (PA), Jay Inslee (WA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI) into Congress.

Note of caution for the Democratic Party: Believe it or not, the House, which just got back from weeks and weeks of summer vacation, is leaving tomorrow for a two-week recess. Again, believe it or not, the damn next day in session is Oct. 15.