Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post is spot on.
Keep an eye on the polling. Republicans surely do, and right now it is telling them that leaving Trump on the ticket makes their political survival difficult, if not impossible.
Earlier in the article she writes
“Even before Americans learned of trump's latest corruption from the last few days, polling on impeachment showed a national consensus in the making. In a poll by Morning Consult-Politico, a majority favors an impeachment inquiry (51 percent to 42 percent). Quite simply, “Americans are more eager to impeach Trump now than they were at similar points in the impeachment sagas of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon,” reports Harry Enten of CNN.”
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Morning Consult as of September 19th (before the scandal broke) shows trump approval to be:
-8 in PA
-5 in Ohio
-2 in Florida
-14 in Iowa
-11 in Wisconsin
-10 in Michigan
-3 in North Carolina
-4 in Arizona
For heaven's sake he's only +2 in Texas and he's underwater by 2 in NEBRASKA!
https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump-2/
Anyone think the next round of polling (with some of this scandal baked in) is going to be BETTER for the shit stain?
Yeah, me neither.
Now, let's put our Republican politician hat on for just a moment so we can game this out.
If YOU were a Republican Senator or Representative (let's forget the flaming right-wing assholes like Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Louie Gohmert for a moment). Just pretend to be a Representative from a middle of the road district or state. What would you do RIGHT NOW?
I'd WAIT and see if trump can squirm out of this mess. I'd say NOTHING, because if you come out and defend the shit stain and he goes down in flaming glory, he's taking YOU with him. If you come out and condemn and he somehow wriggles out of this mess, you have just earned yourself a primary challenger.
I know there's a lot of you that want these Representatives to condemn this disaster right now, but I caution patience. Let him twist in the wind for a while longer. More stuff will come out (something new is coming out EVERY DAMN DAY). The Democrats are just getting started. When the pro-impeachment number gets to about 60, then you'll see movement among the Republican Party to remove trump.
The biggest question in my mind is whether the senior leadership can force him out without having to VOTE him out (which will be a disaster for ANY Republican that has to take that vote).
Nixon resigned for the "good" of the Party. As you know, trump only cares about himself. I'm not sure the Republicans will be so lucky this time. The shit stain is going to go down in a blaze of glory (think of Denethor, Steward of Gondor, in" Lord of the Rings, Return of the King") and try to take as many people as he can with him.