NIKKI 2020:

"I think it's more likely than not he will get impeached," the American University professor [Allan Lichtman.] told DW.

After previously predicting 30 years of presidential elections correctly, Lichtman became a media phenomenon when he -- against mainstream wisdom -- predicted early on that Trump would win in 2016.

Now Lichtman is convinced that as of 2019, and for the remainder of his term, Trump will be engaged in a fight to remain in office -- a fight he well may lose. [...]

Lichtman is not just convinced that Trump will be impeached. He also sees an increasing likelihood that Trump will actually be ousted from the presidency, which many other political experts still consider unlikely. If the House votes to impeach Trump, removing him from office requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. Republicans still control that body by a 51-49 majority, meaning a substantial number of GOP lawmakers would have to vote to oust a president who is a member of their own party.

Such a scenario is less unrealistic than it sounds, said Lichtman, pointing to the steady drip of incriminating information from the Mueller probe and Trump's conduct in office that is beginning to take its toll on Republicans -- a sentiment backed up by the recent midterm results. With presidential and Congressional elections in which Senate Republicans face a much less favorable electoral map than this year just around the corner in 2020, the GOP may be ready to cut Trump loose.

"The way in which Trump could be impeached and removed would be if Republicans think he is going to drag them down with him," said Lichtman. "They don't have any personal loyalty to Trump. They are worried about antagonizing his base and losing Republican primaries. But if they think he is going to be a political liability, they may be willing to abandon him."

He viewed Senator Marco Rubio's recent remark that it would be a "terrible mistake" for Trump to pardon his former campaign manager Paul Manafort as an indicator that some influential Republicans may be ready to reconsider their support for the president, should circumstances merit it.

"Republicans supported [Richard] Nixon until the evidence became so overwhelming that he was a tremendous liability to them," said Lichtman, referring to the former GOP president who resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal. "I am not saying he won't survive, but I am saying it's unlikely."

Nearly 60 percent of U.S. voters surveyed say President Trump should be either impeached and removed from office or formally censured, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill.

The poll shows that a majority of voters polled think some kind of action should be taken against Trump, though they are divided on how far lawmakers should go as Democrats prepare to take over the House majority.

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