The Economist 14Dec2019

The Senate overrepresents less-populated states, which are disproportionately opposed to impeachment

Don’t impeach Impeach

52.6m 62.5m

Don’t impeach Impeach

58 votes 42 votes

Estimated support for impeachment* and vote in presidential election in 2016

By state, at December 4th 2019

By number of voters, m

Estimated net support for impeachment*

By Senate representation

← oppose % points support → ← oppose % points support →

Support Oppose

18-29 years old

66% support

Female

56%support

No college

52%oppose

Republican

93%oppose

← Female

←Black

← Democrat

← Hispanic

White →

Male →

Republican →

No college →

65+ →

← 18-29

polling data census data

How our “multi-level regression and

post-stratification” model works

Sources: United States Census Bureau;

YouGov;The Economist *Excludes don’t knows

YouGov surveyed 18,000 Americans, asking them

about their backgrounds and whether they

support or oppose impeachment

We built a statistical model–a “multi-level

regression”–that measures how each demographic

trait affects support for impeachment

We applied this model to the demography of each

state to predict the share of its residents who

support impeachment (the “post-stratification”)

Voted for Trump, opposes impeachment

Voted for Trump, supports impeachment Voted for Clinton, supports impeachment

Voted for Clinton, opposes impeachment

-30 -20 -10 100 20 30 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30

35

ID

48

LA

40

IN

44

MO

48

NC

49

AZ

51

FL

49

TX

37

ND

38

NE

44

AL

42

SC

48

GA

49

WI

51

MI

51

PA

33

WY

36

SD

40

UT

42

KS

44

AK

45

MS

47

IA

46

OH

61

MA

61

VT

62

CA

64

NY

55

NM

56

OR

56

DE

59

IL

66

MD

65

HI

58

RI

56

NJ

57

WA

59

CT

46

NH

49

MN

51

ME

51

CO

51

NV

51

VA

39

KY

38

MT

39

WV

40

OK

40

AR

41

TN

Support for

impeachment, %

+/- 4 % points

State

64

NY

Senate

race in 2020,

party of

incumbent

Competitive

Senate

races

0

10

0

10

5

15

20

20

30

TX CA

TX CA

The EconomistDecember 14th 2019 77

D

onald trumpowes his presidency to

America’s quaint system of electing

leaders. Despite losing the popular vote, he

prevailed in the electoral college by win-

ning lots of states by small margins and

losing a few by large ones. Now, as Demo-

crats prepare to impeach him, a similar

quirk is helping him stay in office—and in-

sulating his party from voters’ wrath.

Whereas the electoral college is only

mildly anti-majoritarian, the Senate often

deviates wildly from the popular will. Be-

cause each state is weighted equally, voters

in less-populous states are over-represent-

ed relative to those in large ones. Now that

Republicans derive an outsize portion of

their support from rural voters, their share

of senators exceeds their share of total

votes cast in Senate elections.

This imbalance weighs on the politics

of impeachment. Even if the Senate were

apportioned by population, as the House of

Representatives is, it would not reach the

two-thirds majority needed to convict the

president. However, if the chamber reflect-

ed public opinion more closely, some Re-

publican members seeking re-election

might feel obliged to support his removal.

In reality, Republicans are likely to ben-

efit from closing ranks around Mr Trump.

To determine senators’ incentives, we esti-

mated opinions on impeachment using a

method called multi-level regression and

post-stratification (mrp). Its first step uses

a national survey—YouGov, a pollster, gave

us data from 18,000 people—to measure

how demographic traits affect views (eg,

Hispanic voters over age 64 tend to oppose

impeachment). Next, mrpapplies these re-

lationships to the demography of each

state, mimicking 50 separate state polls.

The result should make Democrats ner-

vous. Although 52% of voters with an opin-

ion back impeachment, that is less than the

55% who disapprove of the president. This

means that a block of voters dislikes him,

but wants Congress to leave him in place.

Moreover, in 29 of the 50 states, a plural-

ity of voters opposes impeachment. Views

split about 50/50 in Colorado, Maine and

Arizona, giving those states’ Republican

senators little reason to buck their party

ahead of tough re-election races. Impeach-

ment is unpopular in Iowa and North Caro-

lina. Surprisingly, Texas, long a Republican

bastion, is also 50/50. But most pundits put

its Senate seat out of the Democrats’ reach.

Meanwhile, Democrats may struggle to

keep their caucus on side. Voting to remove

Mr Trump might end Doug Jones’s hope of

re-election in deep-red Alabama. And al-

though divided public opinion will proba-

bly prevent defections in Minnesota and

Michigan, New Hampshire is an outlier.

Despite voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016,

mrpfinds that impeachment trails there by

48% to 41%. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic

incumbent in the state, is expected to win

re-election, but far from assured. If she

backs impeachment, Republicans might

gain the chance to pick up a seat in a cycle

when they are mostly on the defensive. 7

A plurality of Americans—but not of

states—want Donald Trump impeached

All the wrong

places

Graphic detailImpeachment