Politics to include impeachment is all about perceptions of the people that they have for the candidates, the political parties and the president. Impeachment is a political process, not necessarily a legal one in the sense we see with a judge and jury trial. There's no doubt that every Democrat and every Republican had their minds made up prior to any vote from the initial House opening investigation to the trials end. The results were never in doubt.

Tarnished Republican Senators, no. Impeachment is ancient history. It will go down in the history books as a footnote, an asterisk next to Trump's name just like Bill Clinton's. Impeachment has nothing to do with Trump's standing for this election, it isn't even an issue. It's long forgotten by the average American except for folks on sites like this one.

Right now it is the Pandemic and Trump's obnoxious personality and his childish antics, his very unpresidential behavior that are the driving force for the upcoming election. That could change, but I doubt it. In the end it will come down to how independents view Trump, their perception of him more so than their perception of Biden or anything else.

Right now averaging all the polls available on RCP, independents are relative divided between Biden and Trump. Biden 40%, Trump 38%, other 10% undecided, not sure 12%. That's close. But close is okay, the Democratic Party is still the larger of the two major parties and as long as they keep the independent vote close, they win. The Republicans must win the independent vote or lose the election. They probably need to win independents by around 5-6 points to even things out. Remember Trump won independents by 4 points in 2016 and still lost the popular vote by 2. Obama in 2012 lost the independent vote by 3 points and still won by 4. Having the larger party is a great advantage.

It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.