The Impeachment Trial Could Be Trump’s Christmas Gift to Biden

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Congress will ring in the new year as only it can: with stepped-up partisanship and bitter division, this time in the form of the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Trump.

With Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky running the show, the chance that Trump will be removed from office is all but nonexistent. Even so, the trial could turn out to be a meaningful factor in the presidential election—not because of its effect on Trump, but because of the wrench it throws into the Democratic primaries.

The trial will tie up five Democratic hopefuls, including two of the front-runners, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, going into Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Feb. 3. All the Democratic candidates agree that Trump should be removed from office, so that question on its own doesn’t divide the field. But the obligation to attend the Senate trial means a good number of the candidates will be absent from Iowa in the critical weeks before the caucus—at least during the workweek—when they’d rather be making their closing pitch. That could be a particular setback for Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who’s recently been gaining momentum. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and other non-senators will have the state to themselves while their rivals are stuck on Capitol Hill.

“The last place I’d think the senators running for president would want to be in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses is tethered to their desks in the Senate, silently serving as jurors in an impeachment trial, the outcome of which we already know,” says David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former chief strategist. “Iowans want to see the candidates to close the deal, and I would think all of them are frustrated by the prospect of missing this crucial time in the calendar.”

How a high-profile impeachment trial changes sentiment among Iowa Democrats is anybody’s guess. Big news events in the recent past have generally had the effect of freezing the field, but that provides little predictive clarity. The most recent poll in the state, released on Dec. 10 by WHDH 7News/Emerson College, found Biden (23%), Sanders (22%), and Buttigieg (18%) clustered at the top within the margin of error (+/-5.4%). The RealClear Politics Iowa polling average favors Buttigieg (22.5%), Sanders (19.3%), and (Biden 18%), with Warren (16.3%) in striking distance.

One irony of the impeachment saga has to do with its origin in Trump’s attempt, through Ukraine, to impugn and weaken Biden, a likely general election rival. So far, the former vice president’s stature among Democrats hasn’t fallen. In fact, as the trial gets rolling, it’s Biden’s key rivals with day jobs in the Senate who will likely incur a cost. At least in Iowa, that could wind up giving him a small—but perhaps decisive—advantage. —With Sahil Kapur
 
Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg News’ parent, is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jillian Goodman at jgoodman74@bloomberg.net

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