Here's why Speaker Pelosi no longer believes impeachment will cost Democrats in 2020

One of the main reasons why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) dragged her feet on impeachment proceedings for so long was that she was concerned it would leave members of her caucus in conservative districts vulnerable, and possibly even provoke a strong enough backlash from President Donald Trump's supporters to lock in his re-election.

On Tuesday, CNN political director David Chalian walked through why that is no longer Pelosi's calculus.

"David, as you know, the speaker, until today, had been reluctant to call for a formal impeachment inquiry, fearing political fallout could be damaging to a whole bunch of Democrats who were on the bubble," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "They’re worried about getting re-elected. She certainly wants to stay in the majority in the House of Representatives, not revert to the minority. So the concern seems to have gone away at least right now."

"It’s not clear at all the politics have changed dramatically on this," said Chalian. "I will note one thing here. The midterm elections were an indication how the country was responding to all of the Trump allegations out there, and the way in which he was behaving, and in addition to the Democrats fighting on health care and other issues that matter at kitchen tables, what we saw was in response to Trump’s behavior."

"Independents, which he won in 2016, fled his party dramatically and went to the Democrats and really helped bring the Democrats into the majority of the House," continued Chalian. "While, yes, there is a chance this is going to drum up the president’s base — we saw Rudy Giuliani start laying the groundwork like for Mueller, all the arguments will get made and will make it into a partisan brawl — what doesn’t seem clear to me yet, and why I think Nancy Pelosi may feel not as worried this is a total loser for Democrats, is at its very core, is Donald Trump’s unpresidential behavior."

"That is the thing that has sent independent suburbanites fleeing the Republican Party, fleeing this president," added Chalian. "That is what will be front and center. Donald Trump has got to win back some of those folks in the middle, and I think these allegations make it very difficult for him to do so."

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