Thread by @adegrandpre

1/ 37% of Americans favor starting the process while 56% say they oppose.

I was curious whether there is any historical data to compare these figures to the Nixon/Clinton eras, so I asked out polling director, @sfcpoll ... wapo.st/2V0biK4?tid=ss…

2/ Scott pointed me to two sources.

In the first, we see that Americans's support for impeaching Clinton never rose above 41%. See Page 2 here: washingtonpost.com/context/washin…

3/ With Nixon, it's more complicated. This 2014 Pew Research Ctr report by Andrew Kohut shows how support for impeachment grew over time but did not become Americans' majority view until August '74. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014…

4/ "Only in early Aug., following the House Judiciary Committee’s recommendation in July that Nixon be impeached & the SCOTUS decision that he surrender his audio tapes, did a clear majority – 57% – come to the view that the president should be removed from office," Kohut wrote.

5/ This seems to cut to the heart of Democrats' dilemma now. From today's story:

"While party leaders have sought to tamp down impeachment talk, worried that engaging in such a process would backfire in the 2020 elections, their political base supports it."

6/ Morever: "About 6 in 10 independents are against impeachment now & independents are more opposed today than they were in a Jan. poll — a sign of the potential political danger for Democrats as they seek to win back key centrist voters in their goal of beating Trump in 2020."

7/ What remains to be seen is whether/how public sentiment evolves as Democrats press ahead w/ their oversight probes of the Trump administration, and additional investigations involving the president continue in New York.