DES MOINES, Iowa -- For all the attention being paid to President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, a local political scientist says it all comes down to a numbers game.
"You need 67 votes to remove and it's highly unlikely 20 Republicans, let alone half-a-dozen would bother taking the risk to their political careers by voting to remove" says Drake University Professor Dennis Goldford.
He says with President Trump's removal unlikely, both sides of the impeachment argument are left playing to what they think are friendly audiences.
"I think attorneys for the President are actually speaking to the President and his base, and I think the (Democratic) House managers are speaking to the American public, generally" Goldford says.
With less than two weeks before the Iowa Caucuses, Goldford says he doesn't think the campaigns of Democratic Presidential front-runners Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will be hurt by NOT being in the state as they sit in the impeachment trial. He says they both have a strong base of campaign workers in the state.
Goldford says Senator Amy Klobuchar could take a bit of a hit by not being in Iowa as her campaign struggles to get out of single-digit poll approval.