Tools chosen: kalshi_direct kalshi_related polymarket_related claude_news congress_bills wikipedia code_execution

Sub-questions (Fermi decomposition)

Planner reasoning

This is a Kalshi long-horizon political question with an extreme base rate: no US president has ever been convicted and removed by the Senate (0 for 4 impeachments across 236 years). The key drivers are Senate composition (needs 67 votes, i.e., ~20 GOP defections even after a hypothetical 2026 Democratic wave) and any live impeachment momentum. Primary anchor is the Kalshi price, triangulated with Polymarket and news on impeachment resolutions.

# Current state Resolution requires House impeachment AND Senate conviction (67 votes) before Jan 20, 2029. As of late 2025/early 2026, the House has repeatedly tabled Democratic impeachment resolutions (most recently 237–140 on Dec 11, 2025), meaning Trump has NOT been impeached in this term, let alone convicted. No sitting Senate Republican has called for impeachment or removal. # Timeline of key events - 2025-01-09: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) files resolutions to expunge Trump's 2019/2021 impeachments (confirmed, no action taken). - 2025-05-13/15: Reps. Thanedar (7 articles) and Al Green (H.Res.415) file impeachment resolutions; referred to Judiciary Committee, no floor action (confirmed). - 2025-12-10/11: Al Green forces privileged vote on H.Res.939 (threats to execute Members of Congress / judges); House votes 237–140 to table (kill) it — a 77% increase in support vs. a June 2025 vote (confirmed, clerk.house.gov). - 2026-04-06: Rep. John Larson files 13 articles of impeachment (confirmed, referred to Judiciary). - 2026-04-22 to 2026-06: Polling (Verasight/Strength in Numbers, Pew, Gallup) shows 52–55% of adults support House impeachment; only ~14% of Republicans; no GOP senator defections reported (reported polling, not a resolution mechanism). - 2026-04-23: Rep. Darrell Issa (R) files resolution to expunge both prior impeachments (confirmed). - 2026-08-24: Al Green files another impeachment resolution, H.Res.1486 (confirmed, pending in Judiciary as of latest data). # Event Will Trump be impeached by the House AND convicted/removed by the Senate before his term ends on Jan 20, 2029? # Outcomes to forecast - Yes (impeached and removed) - No # Kalshi market anchor **KXTRUMPREMOVE current YES price: 14%** (this is the primary consensus to beat). 7-day change: flat; 30-day change: -4pts; price range over 90 days: 13-20%; avg daily volume ~1,926 contracts — moderately liquid, trending down from higher levels a month ago. # Sub-question answers 1. **Kalshi price/trend** — 14% currently, down from a 90-day high of 20%, drifting lower over the past month; volume ~1,926/day [kalshi_direct]. 2. **Historical base rate** — 0/4 prior presidential impeachments (Johnson, Clinton, Trump 2019, Trump 2021) resulted in conviction. Best GOP defection was 7 Republican senators in the 2021 trial, well short of the 67 needed [code_execution, Wikipedia]. 3. **Senate composition** — Currently 53R–47D/I. Even 100% Democratic unity requires 20 GOP defections to convict; Republicans are favored to hold the Senate after 2026 midterms (net gain of 4 needed for Dems to flip, competitive races in OH, AK, GA, MI, IA, TX, NC) [claude_news, Wikipedia 2026 Senate elections]. 4. **House impeachment resolutions in 119th Congress** — Multiple filed (Green H.Res.415, 939, 1486; Thanedar H.Res.353; Larson 13 articles/H.Res.1155). Forced floor vote on H.Res.939 (Dec 11, 2025) was tabled 237–140, with 140 voting to advance — a record high but still a clear defeat [congress_bills, claude_news]. 5. **Active scandals/GOP calls** — No credible reporting of Republican senators calling for impeachment as of latest data; Rep. Raskin (D) confirms zero GOP Senate support. Elon Musk called for impeachment in a June 2025 public feud with Trump, but this is not legislative/GOP-elite momentum [claude_news, Wikipedia]. 6. **Polymarket comparison** — No active Polymarket market found matching "Trump impeached," "impeachment," or "Trump out as president" (0 matches across 100 scanned markets) [polymarket_related]. No cross-market comparison possible. # Key facts (high-confidence, factual) 1. [kalshi_direct] KXTRUMPREMOVE YES = 14%, down 4pts in 30 days. 2. [kalshi_related] Separate market KXIMPEACH (impeachment only, no removal requirement) trades at 65% — underscoring market view impeachment is plausible but removal is not. 3. [claude_news/congress_bills] Dec 11, 2025 House vote to table Green's impeachment resolution: 237–140 (140 in favor of advancing, a new high). 4. [code_execution] 2021 impeachment trial saw 7 GOP senators vote to convict — closest historical precedent, still 13 votes short of today's 67-vote threshold under 53R-47D Senate. 5. [claude_news] No sitting GOP senator has publicly backed impeachment/removal as of the latest reporting. # Cross-market signals - Kalshi related: KXIMPEACH-29-JAN20 ("impeached during term," no removal needed) = 65% and rising slightly; KXIMPEACHCABINET (cabinet member impeached) = 0.6%. Large spread between "impeached" (65%) and "impeached AND removed" (14%) reflects market correctly pricing conviction as the binding constraint. - Polymarket: No comparable market found. - Sportsbook implied: None available. # Analyst opinions and speculation - Model estimate (code_execution) using compound House-flip/impeachment/conviction scenarios yields ~0.1%–2.2% probability, midpoint ~0.5–0.7% — notably below Kalshi's 14%. - Historical naive Laplace/Jeffreys base rates (10–17%) are flagged as unreliable because they ignore the unprecedented 20-GOP-defection requirement. - Analysts note current Kalshi price (14%) may be overpricing "No"/underpricing certainty of failure if Senate math is treated as near-absolute. # Directional lean per outcome - **Yes**: Supported by rising public polling support (52-55%), record House vote tally (140), Democratic momentum ahead of 2026 midterms. Opposed by: zero GOP Senate defections, Republicans favored to hold Senate, structural 67-vote requirement never approached (max 7 defections historically). - **No**: Overwhelmingly favored — no realistic path to 67 Senate votes under any plausible 2026 midterm outcome; House failed multiple times to even impeach in 119th Congress. # Gaps / unknowns - No visibility into 2026 midterm actual results (still pending as of data window) — final Senate composition could shift market pricing but unlikely to breach supermajority threshold. - No Polymarket cross-check available. - Unclear if any new scandal (Epstein files, Venezuela strikes, emoluments) is currently active/escalating — research didn't surface specific ongoing scandal driving elite GOP defection. # Calibration anchors - Kalshi current YES price (anchor): **14%** - Historical precedent: 0/4 impeached presidents convicted; closest GOP defection was 7/50 senators (2021), far below 20 needed today. - Model-based fair value estimate: ~0.5–2%, suggesting current 14% price may be significantly too high relative to structural Senate math, though markets could be pricing in political uncertainty/tail risk over a 3-year window.

1. Both forecasters converge on nearly identical point estimates (5% and 4%) via near-identical reasoning chains, offering no real independent check on each other; neither explains why they landed at 4-5x the model's fair-value estimate (0.5-2%) rather than closer to it, given they both cite that model approvingly. 2. Neither forecaster meaningfully engages with the full ~3-year horizon to Jan 2029 — their reasoning is anchored almost entirely on the current 119th Congress and 2026 midterms, ignoring that a major intervening crisis (e.g., unresolved "Epstein files, Venezuela strikes" flagged in the brief as an active gap) could still shift GOP elite behavior in 2027-2028, a scenario neither assigns explicit tail-risk weight to. 3. Both treat the 67-vote Senate threshold as essentially fixed at "20 GOP defections needed," but neither models scenario branches like a Democratic Senate sweep in 2026 (unlikely but not zero) combined with a second unrelated scandal — they collapse multiple compounding low-probability paths into a single number without decomposing them, which is exactly what the brief's code_execution model (0.1-2.2% range) did more rigorously. 4. Neither forecaster discusses the historical Nixon precedent (resignation preempting a likely bipartisan conviction) as a reference class for how GOP Senate opinion could shift rapidly under acute crisis conditions — this is a relevant near-miss case the brief doesn't mention either, but its absence from both forecasts is a shared blind spot. 5. Both cite the "Kalshi long-dated YES tail bias" argument to justify discounting the 14% market price, but neither quantifies this bias or cross-checks it against KXIMPEACH's 65% price (which could carry the same structural bias in the impeachment-only direction), potentially undermining the argument's asymmetric application. 6. Neither forecast addresses the discrepancy between rising public support (52-55%) and record House vote tallies (140, up 77%) as a leading indicator that could compound over multiple Congresses if Democrats retake the House in 2026 — they treat House impeachment as basically solved by KXIMPEACH's 65%, but don't examine how repeated impeachment attempts might gradually erode GOP Senate unity over a multi-year window.

4% (76% confidence)

Yes: 4% No: 96%

Removal requires House impeachment plus 67 Senate votes; with a 53R-47D Senate and Republicans favored to hold it in 2026, conviction needs ~20 GOP defections versus a historical maximum of 7 (2021), and zero sitting GOP senators back removal. The House has not even impeached this term, tabling H.Res.939 by 237-140, and the wide spread between KXIMPEACH (65%) and KXTRUMPREMOVE (14%) confirms the market itself sees Senate conviction as the binding constraint. Kalshi's 14% carries the well-documented long-dated longshot/capital-cost bias, and structural decomposition models put fair value at 0.5-2%. I sit modestly above those models — not at them — to respect the critique's point that a three-year horizon leaves room for an acute, Nixon-style crisis (Epstein files, Venezuela strikes, or an unforeseen scandal) that could rapidly collapse GOP Senate unity, but such a cascade historically produces resignation rather than conviction, which would not resolve YES. Final: 4% Yes.

Total pipeline time: 132.0s