President Donald Trump attends the NATO summit in Watford, near London, England, December 4, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Right now, in the FiveThirtyEight aggregation of polls about impeachment, 47.3 percent of respondents support the removal of President Trump from office, and 45.9 percent oppose his removal. That’s about where the numbers have been since early October. Support for removal has gone as high as 48.4 percent and as low as 45.6 percent. Opposition has been as low as 43.4 percent and as high as 45.7 percent.


While those aren’t good numbers for the White House, that split won’t generate any pressure on Republicans in the House or Senate and will probably make a handful of swing-district and swing-state House members feel a bit nervous.

The House Intelligence Committee held their first hearings on the Ukraine matter in November, and the House Judiciary Committee started hearings early this month. By the measuring stick of expanding the public support for removal, those hearings must be declared a failure.