If This Is Trump's Best Case, The Ukraine Scandal Is Looking Really Bad For Him
By Nate Silver
Sometimes, when a news story is still unfolding in real time, we can’t do much better than to hazard a guess about how it will affect the polls. Of course, we can also not hazard a guess — that is, we can not say anything about it at all. But given that I wrote yesterday about public opinion surrounding the impeachment of President Trump, this is one time when I think it’s worth weighing in on the latest development; namely, the White House’s decision to release, on Wednesday, Trump’s reconstructed conversation (note: not a verbatim transcript) with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
This conversation seems to have triggered a nearly Yanny or Laurel-like reaction in my Twitter feed, almost as though people are seeing and hearing two different things. Everyone either seems to think it’s either really bad for Trump, or not very damaging at all, with few people landing in between.
And I’m not that rare person who hears it both ways. No. I’m on the side that says it’s bad for Trump. And like the Yanny or Laurel thing or The Dress, I have trouble seeing how people see it any other way.
But I’d also say you shouldn’t take that guess very seriously. Our track record when using statistical models is pretty darn good, but when I’m in guess mode, I don’t claim to be much better than a replacement-level pundit.
With that said, there is a little bit of polling data that points in the bad-for-Trump direction (more about that in a moment). And for the record, this is relatively new territory for me. Up until now, I’ve been skeptical of the political wisdom of impeachment for Democrats, as yesterday’s post detailed.
The logic behind my this-is-bad-for-Trump guess is that the White House’s record of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky represents the best–case scenario for Trump. And that best-case scenario is still potentially fairly bad for him. They have Trump on record as imploring a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden, one of his most likely opponents in the 2020 general election.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-this-is-trumps-best-case-the-ukraine-scandal-is-looking-really-bad-for-him/