House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement that she may delay President Donald Trump's impeachment trial has been hailed in some quarters as a tactical masterstroke.
Democrats, in this scenario, will gain valuable leverage to extract concessions from Senate Republicans on the terms of the trial. It's likely that the president and his allies will seek to build on this attack, portraying Democrats as intent solely on delay and obstruction, frustrating the process of impeachment they initiated for petty partisan ends.
The Trump campaign has spent millions on digital ads portraying impeachment as a plot by Democrats born of narrow partisan goals. This has, the ads say, left the machinery of Congress ground to a halt while urgent problems such as healthcare and immigration go neglected.