@Whitefire13 / thread
One thing that gets overlooked a lot is: historical data when it comes to elections.

A brief history lesson here in the US on the 2 major political parties (democrat/republican.) - skip if you already know this:

With only 1 exception in the last 70 years, (the extremely popular president reagan to bush sr.) did a political party win 3 terms in a row for president of the US. Otherwise it has always flipped after 2 terms or less. And the parties are a whole lot more polarized now then they were back then.

FDR (democrat) did win 4 terms in office himself, with his 4th personal win coming in 1948, he successfully pulled the country out of the great depression in the 1930's and steered the US to overwhelming world wide victory in ww2 making him extremely popular with the voters.

Laws were made after that, to prevent presidents from serving more than 2 terms. Before that, we go back to the days that the parties were hardly recognizable to what they are today. (The democrat party was pro slavery and was very popular in the deep south, pretty much the polar opposite of what it is today.)

Clinton winning a 3rd consecutive democrat presidency, based on historical data, was unlikely. Despite that, she still did win the popular vote by over 2 million votes. Only to be defeated by the electoral system. (An entirely different discussion to be had there.) And she was going for first female POTUS in history, had baggage of a long political career, to trump's zero baggage (he never ran for political office before!)

--- history lesson over ---

Simply put, trump had some very ideal conditions going his way in 2016.

To me, the US presidency is decided by party voter mobilization in a few "battle ground" states. (How many voters do not vote out of apathy towards the whole system?) Voter turnout in these states is key to victory. Both sides try to "game" the system by drawing favorable districting lines, and playing around with accessibility to vote. But voter turnout in these states, to me, determines which party wins president.

This time around? Well I hold no crystal ball. But I would say some of the advantages trump had going into 2016 has been lost, but he does have the advantage of incumbency. And his voter base is all but impervious to any sort of loss of faith in trump, so trump does not have to worry about losses to his voting base, he just has to win over a few new votes in battleground states.

His base voters have not changed, and his base is very fired up to vote. So to me, the real questions are, in the key battleground states: how fired up is the democrat side of things? How will the independents vote? How will first time voters vote?

@Whitefire13

I would like to think pelosi and the democratic party knew from the start that they were never going to actually remove trump from office simply because of the current republican majority in the senate, with most all of them being strictly loyal to trump, seemingly no matter what he does. I would guess in part, because: most of the republican senate political careers depend on it. (Plus perhaps, their very lives, look up how many death threats romney has gotten from people that in the past voted for him when he did not display unwavering loyalty to the white house.)

My guess is:
Pelosi and the democrat strategy was to force the republican party to block witnesses and do away any pretense of republican senators being neutral to the actions of trump. And to put 1st term impeachment on trump's resume. While this strategy won't affect your average die hard trump fan in the slightest, (if anything it will galvanize them to support trump even more.) It also forced republic senators to officially endorse the president and all that he has done in a very public manner. Their fate is tied to trump's. If trump is not re-elected in november, a large part of the republican party is in serious jeopardy in the following years. Especially if democrats also gain control of the senate majority. (A fairly likely possibility if trump is not re-elected.)

This whole circus with republicans blocking any witnesses to the trial may just give pause to independents and republican voters that are not trump zealots. "Why was the republican party almost without exception so adamant to block witnesses instead of clearing trump's name for the world to see, if trump is truly innocent?" Perhaps enough of those people that eithir stay home on election day, (if they refuse to vote for democrats,) or in the rare case of a true independent, possibly vote for the democratic nominee instead of trump? Maybe enough to move the needle to a democrat potus instead of another 4 years of trump.

As a US citizen, that does take the time to follow the broad strokes of politics, my own opinion I would put trump winning in november at 1 in 3. Around 33%

33% odds is pretty terrifying to me, because a 2nd term trump will know he can do pretty much whatever he wants with no check and balance to his power. Especially if republicans hold onto senate majority, (which is far more likely if trump is voted in for 2nd term.)