Tools chosen: kalshi_direct kalshi_related polymarket_related claude_news congress_bills wikipedia code_execution gdelt_news

Sub-questions (Fermi decomposition)

Planner reasoning

This is a long-horizon Kalshi political market on presidential impeachment AND Senate conviction before Jan 20, 2029 — historically a near-zero base rate (0 of 4 impeachments ever led to conviction; 67 Senate votes needed). Key research: the current Kalshi price anchor, cross-venue Polymarket pricing, the 2026 midterm Senate composition math, and any live impeachment resolutions or GOP defection signals.

# Current state No Senate impeachment trial has occurred or is scheduled. The House tabled two Trump impeachment resolutions in 2025 (June 24: 344–79; Dec 11: 237–140, with Democratic leadership voting "present"). Kalshi's own removal market (KXTRUMPREMOVE) prices this at 15% YES, far above what fundamentals (no pending trial, no GOP defection signal, current 53R-47D Senate) would suggest — likely reflecting long-dated tail-risk pricing and thin/skewed order flow rather than a reasoned probability. # Timeline of key events - 2025-01-09: Rep. M. Greene introduces HRes.24/25 to expunge Trump's prior impeachments (confirmed, symbolic, unrelated to removal). - 2025-05-13/15: HRes.353 (Thanedar) and HRes.415 (Green) impeachment resolutions filed (confirmed). - 2025-06-24: House tables HRes.537 (Al Green) 344–79 (confirmed). - 2025-12-11: House tables HRes.939 (Al Green, re: Trump's comments on executing lawmakers) 237–140, Dem leadership votes "present" (confirmed). - 2026-02-11: Sen. Markey files SRes.605 denouncing Trump election-related statements — not impeachment (confirmed). - 2026-04-20: Sen. Rick Scott (R) files SRes.682 declaring Trump's 2019 impeachment illegitimate — symbolic, GOP-aligned (confirmed). - 2026 (throughout): Scattered impeachment calls from commentators (Alex Jones) and fringe outlets after Trump remarks/actions; no new House floor votes reported beyond Dec 2025 (rumored/reported, low signal). - 2026-08 (as of research date): 2026 midterm forecasts show Democrats favored for House (85%, FiftyPlusOne) and narrow Senate edge possible (55% chance, median 51 seats) — still nowhere near 67 for conviction (reported). # Event Will Trump be impeached AND convicted/removed by the Senate before his term ends (Jan 20, 2029)? # Outcomes to forecast - Yes (impeached and removed) - No (not removed) # Kalshi market anchor KXTRUMPREMOVE current YES price: **15%**. 7-day change +1%, 30-day change -2%, range 13-22% over 90 days, avg daily volume ~1,860 contracts. This is the primary consensus to beat. # Sub-question answers 1. **Kalshi price/trend** — 15% YES currently; ranged 13-22% over past 90 days, modestly volatile but trending down from 30-day-ago levels (-2%). [kalshi_direct] 2. **Polymarket equivalent** — No matching Polymarket market found (0 hits for "Trump impeached/removed"). No independent crowd price available. [polymarket_related] 3. **Historical base rate** — 3 US presidents impeached (Johnson, Clinton, Trump×2 = effectively 2 impeachments for Trump); zero convicted/removed by Senate in US history (0/4 trials). [wikipedia; code_execution] 4. **Senate composition** — Currently 53R-47D(+2I caucusing D). 2026 midterms: 35 seats up (22 R-held); Dems need net +4 for majority; best Dem forecasts show ~51 seats (range 47-55) — a bare majority at most, nowhere near 67-vote conviction threshold. [270toWin; FiftyPlusOne] 5. **Impeachment resolutions in 119th Congress** — Multiple filed by Rep. Al Green (HRes.415, 537, 939) and Rep. Thanedar (HRes.353); House tabled HRes.537 344-79 (June 2025) and HRes.939 237-140 (Dec 2025), with Democratic leadership itself voting "present" on the latter, indicating lack of even full Democratic caucus support. [congress_bills; The Hill; factually.co] 6. **Active scandals/defection signals** — No sitting GOP senator has publicly signaled openness to conviction in 2026; recent news shows scattered new impeachment calls (judge-related TPS dispute, election-integrity speech, budget director) but no floor momentum or GOP crack. [gdelt_news; claude_news] 7. **Related market prices** — KXIMPEACH-29-JAN20 (impeachment only, not conviction) trades at 61% (down from 68% high), showing House impeachment seen as plausible-to-likely but the removal market at 15% implies market assigns only ~25% conditional probability of conviction given impeachment — still very high relative to fundamentals given zero historical precedent and Senate math. [kalshi_related] # Key facts (high-confidence, factual) 1. [congress_bills/The Hill] House tabled two Trump impeachment resolutions in 2025 by wide bipartisan-leaning margins (344-79; 237-140). 2. [wikipedia] No U.S. president has ever been convicted/removed by Senate impeachment trial (0-for-4 historical trials). 3. [270toWin] Senate currently 53R-47D(+I); conviction requires 67 votes, meaning ~20 GOP defections needed even under full Dem unity. 4. [FiftyPlusOne] Even bullish 2026 midterm Dem forecasts project ~51 Senate seats — a simple majority at best, not a conviction supermajority. 5. [code_execution] Historical max GOP defection rate on a Trump conviction vote is 7/50 (14%) in 2021 — far below the ~38% needed now. # Cross-market signals - Kalshi related: KXIMPEACH-29-JAN20 (impeachment only) = 61% YES, well above the 15% removal price — market differentiates impeachment (plausible) from conviction (unlikely). - Polymarket: No equivalent market exists; no cross-check available. - Sportsbook implied: N/A. # Analyst opinions and speculation - factually.co/GovTrack: House impeachment resolutions face steep odds even at committee stage (GovTrack gave HRes.353 only 13-15% chance of passing floor stages); Democrats reportedly weigh political costs of repeated failed impeachment attempts. - code_execution model: Best-guess point estimate for Yes is ~0.05-0.3%, driven almost entirely by the near-impossibility of a 67-vote Senate conviction, not by impeachment likelihood. - No credible analyst/reporting found suggesting real GOP appetite for conviction. # Directional lean per outcome - **Yes (removed)**: Weak support — elevated impeachment attempt frequency, GOP fringe unease (Cassidy clash on war powers) show some erosion of unity, but no removal-relevant defection signal. - **No (not removed)**: Strong support — zero historical conviction precedent, current and plausible future Senate composition falls far short of 67 votes, House itself has twice failed/declined to advance impeachment with Democratic support tepid. # Gaps / unknowns - No Polymarket cross-check available for independent crowd calibration. - Unclear how thin volume (1,860/day) and wide 13-22% range reflect true informed trading vs. speculative/low-liquidity noise on Kalshi's removal market. - No visibility into any private negotiations or emerging scandal that could shift GOP Senate calculus before 2029. # Calibration anchors - Kalshi current YES price (anchor): **15%** - Related Kalshi impeachment-only market: 61% YES (upper bound on impeachment step) - Historical base rate: 0/4 Senate trials resulted in conviction; model-based estimate ~0.1-0.3% for full removal by 2029.

1. Both forecasts converge tightly around 5-6% and both anchor primarily off Kalshi's 15%, but the brief's own "code_execution model" and historical Bayesian math (0/4 conviction, max 7/50 GOP defection vs. 33 needed) point to a much lower ~0.1-0.5% range — neither forecaster explains why they land an order of magnitude above that model-based estimate despite endorsing its logic. 2. Neither forecast explicitly decomposes the joint probability as P(impeachment)×P(conviction|impeachment); using the brief's own cross-market signal (61% impeachment × implied ~0.5-2% true conditional conviction rate, not the market's inflated ~25%) would justify a materially lower number than 5-6%. 3. Both treat the 15% Kalshi price as "anchor to beat" and discount it, yet still cluster suspiciously close to it (5-6%) rather than fully committing to the fundamentals-driven near-zero estimate — this looks like anchoring bias dressed up as independent reasoning. 4. Neither forecaster meaningfully engages with the multi-year horizon (through Jan 2029) allowing for two more Congresses, unpredictable scandals, health/resignation-adjacent scenarios, or a 2028 election-cycle dynamic that could shift Senate composition beyond current midterm forecasts — the "nonzero tail" allowance is asserted but not quantified against this extended time window. 5. Both rationales are nearly identical in structure and content (same evidence, same conclusion, same ~5-6%), suggesting no genuine diversity of reasoning or independent stress-testing of the tail scenario (e.g., what specific scandal magnitude would be needed to flip 20 GOP senators, and how likely is that specifically over 3+ years). 6. Neither forecast addresses the GovTrack point that even House passage of impeachment itself is only ~13-15% at the bill-stage level for individual resolutions, which — combined with historical conviction rates — suggests the compound probability could reasonably be pushed toward the 1-2% range rather than 5-6%.

3% (74% confidence)

Yes: 3% No: 97%

Removal requires a two-thirds Senate conviction: with 53R-47D now and even the most bullish 2026 projections giving Democrats ~51 seats, roughly 20 Republican defections would be needed versus a historical maximum of 7 (2021). No president has ever been convicted (0/4 trials), the House tabled two impeachment resolutions in 2025 by wide margins with Democratic leadership voting 'present', and no sitting GOP senator has signaled openness to conviction. The devil's advocate is correct that both forecasters clustered near the Kalshi 15% anchor without justifying an order-of-magnitude gap from fundamentals: decomposing as P(impeach)~50-60% x P(convict|impeach)~2-4% yields ~1-2%. I move below both forecasts to 3%, retaining a modest tail for a genuinely unforeseen scandal across a 3-year horizon and acknowledging that persistent 13-22% market pricing is some (thin, likely inflated) evidence I should not entirely dismiss.

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