On December 18, President Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives in accordance with the United States Constitution.

In advance of the House vote, polls showed the majority of voters in the USA approved the impeachment of Trump.

In the new year, the trial will begin in the Senate and once again the polls are not good for President Trump.

A new poll by MSN shows 55% of voters want the Senate to convict and remove Trump. Worse, only 40% support the President remaining in office.

The MSN poll asks:

"Do you support or oppose the Senate voting to remove President Trump from office?"

In a poll that is updated daily, MSN shows that on December 24, those advocating the removal of Trump rose to 55% where it stayed through Christmas before coming back down to 54%. That 55% removal support peak had only been reached before on October 4.

But more troubling for the Trump camp, support for Trump remaining in office fell to an all time low on December 24 and stayed there. Now only 40% of voters support President Trump staying in the Oval Office until the end of his term—or rather oppose the Senate convicting him during his trial.

Opposition to the Senate convicting the President had reached a new high of 47%—still less than half of all voters—on December 15. On that same date support for a Trump conviction and removal dropped to just 48%.

But on the day of the impeachment vote, that opposition to convicting Trump began to take a nosedive while the calls to remove him from office began to climb.

Daily presidential tracking poll/MSN

Microsoft Research economist David Rothschild shared the polling on Twitter.

He commented:

"MSN Poll matches all-time high for support of conviction 55%, and opposition plummets to all-time low: Many people moving from 'opposition' to 'don't know,' big moment will be if they reach support for conviction."

Rothschild followed up with:

"When you follow polling daily, you learn people rarely make big jumps from Opposition to Support, but slowly move through don't know or third-party. This polling is a clear sign that Republican policy of complete obstruction is not selling well to voting public."

People speculated that both the White House and the Senate are watching to poll numbers.

Although some felt certain Trump Senate allies would sacrifice their reelection hopes for Trump.

In addition to tracking the support and opposition of a Senate conviction and the removal of President Trump, MSN also keeps an eye on Trump's job approval rating. But while the Senate conviction numbers rose, the approval and disapproval numbers remained fairly steady.

The poll asks the question:

"Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?"

D

As of December 26, 54% of voters give Trump failing marks for his job. Only 43% approve of the Trump presidency's results.

Understanding how the impeachment and trial process works is important for anyone following the proceedings. The critically acclaimed book Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide is available here in multiple formats.

"As Benjamin Franklin famously put it, Americans have a republic, if we can keep it. Preserving the Constitution and the democratic system it supports is the public's responsibility. One route the Constitution provides for discharging that duty—a route rarely traveled—is impeachment. Expanding beyond violations of the law, impeachment was meant to defend against any action that would undermine the foundations of our republic." ~ Cass R. Sunstein, Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide