During the impeachment hearing, Republicans repeated roughly 64 million times that impeaching Donald Trump would be “repealing the votes of 63 million voters.” Somehow, they never bothered to point out that Hillary Clinton gathered the votes of 66 million voters in that same election—though the phase “electoral landslide” did get a bit of a workout.
But if Republicans were really concerned about how the House’s close modeling of the actual population allowed that Electoral College advantage to be overcome, they can lean back in the knowledge that in the Senate things are much, much, much less based on the real desire of Americans. Much worse, in fact, than the Electoral College. After all, each California senator represents 66 times as many people as each Wyoming senator. With disproportionate representation like that, it shouldn’t be surprising that impeachment of Donald Trump has a solid edge in national polls, but is all but a dead letter in the Senate.
All those charts of almost empty red land that Republicans gleefully labeled with “can’t impeach this?” In the Senate, they’re right. In fact, they’re so right that, according to The Washington Post, all it will take for Trump to hold onto office is the support of … get ready … 7% of the population. That’s seven. Seven percent. As in one less than eight.
That 7% of the population would be enough to earn Trump the votes of the 17 least populous states. 17 states = 34 senators. And that’s all it takes to keep impeachment from passing. In the House, Doug Collins seemed to pull the number 93% out of his … let’s say “hat” … in claims that “Democrats are ignoring 93% of the evidence.” But maybe that number came from the understanding that Republicans can simply say “screw you” to 93% of Americans, and still Trump will remain in office.
The 7% solution is unlikely, since not all those states are conveniently in Column Red. The least populous 17 includes Rhode Island, Delaware, and Hawaii—none of which are likely to cast their votes for Trump. Still, don’t discount the idea that Trump could secure a win without touching double digits.
And it’s not just the disproportionate representation of tiny states that gives Trump an edge in the Senate. In the House, multiple African American representatives stood up to give some of the absolutely best and most-compelling summaries of the case against Trump. But many of those same representatives live in southern districts where the Senate seats belong to Republicans. Meaning that many black voters are likely to see their senators vote to preserve Trump’s power, no matter what they think of him.