Before that, it says "First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts".
This is effectively what the democrats argued. And now it's black on white: Trump was the official candidate of a foreign enemy that broke US law in order to favour his campaign. The fact that Trump did not set up a joint comittee with representatives of the Russian Government within the Trump Campaign to coordinate with them (and did not openly talk to him other than the time Trump asked Russia on public TV for more leaked emails) is a legal matter but won't make a single person who was predisposed to thinking of Trump as Putin's puppet and his victory as the result of a foreign attack on the US change their mind.
Also, bonus:
"In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion." [...] Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons , the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.".
In no way was that the Democratic argument, the Democratic argument was that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy of collusion to win the Presidential election. This is parroted by Representative Schiff who is one of the most public figures of the Democratic Party when it comes to this whole mess.
“REP. ADAM SCHIFF: Look, you can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence. Now, there's a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/17/adam_schiff_there_is_compelling_evidence_in_plain_sight_of_trump-russia_collusion.html
Also
Richard Blumenthal
"The evidence is pretty clear that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians," Sen. Richard Blumenthal told MSNBC host Chris Hayes Nov. 17, 2018.
Jerry Nadler
CNN interviewed Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., House Judiciary Committee chairman, on Nov. 30, 2018. Nadler said he definitely saw collusion.
"The fact that Manafort and Trump Jr. met with Russian agents who told them they wanted to give them dirt on Hillary as part of the Russian government’s attempt to help them, and that they said fine," Nadler said. "I mean, it’s clear that the campaign colluded, and there’s a lot of evidence of that. The question is, was the president involved?"
Ron Wyden
"When you look at Donald Trump Jr., and what is on the record, there was clearly an intent to collude," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Dec. 14, 2017.
Tom Perez
"Over the course of the last year we have seen, I think, a mountain of evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Russians to basically affect our democracy," Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said after the DNC filed a civil suit against the Trump campaign, the Russian government and Wikileaks in April 2018.
Maxine Waters
One of the strongest voices for impeachment has been that of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
At a town hall meeting of the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation in Washington, Waters urged activists to press for impeachment.
"Here you have a president who I can tell you, I guarantee you, is in collusion with the Russians to undermine our democracy," Waters said Sept. 21, 2017. "Here you have a president who has obstructed justice and here you have a president that lies every day."
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/25/what-democrats-said-about-trump-collusion-mueller-/
Remember what the definition of collusion is: secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.
The Democrats have been very clear in their message that they believe that Trump was engaging in a secret conspiracy with Russia to win the election.
Again, it's not only the economy. There's a fantastic economy right now and yet Trump's approval is awful, and has never, not for a single day, got close to being 50%, the first time it has ever happened. Why? Read this article
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/trump-economy-approval-rating-2020/index.html
But some key paragraphs:
"The funny thing is the same thing [approval ratings being completely disconnected from economic sentiment] happened under President Barack Obama. According to political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, changes in consumer sentiment also failed to predict changes in Obama's approval rating. In fact, if anything, Obama's approval rating was lower when consumer sentiment was higher. This is a complete reversal of the trend dating back to the John Kennedy administration. From Kennedy to George W. Bush, you could count on consumer sentiment changes to drive changes in overall approval ratings. Not surprisingly, therefore, the perceptions of a good economy lifted Ronald Reagan to re-election in 1984 and sunk George H.W. Bush in 1992. "
"It's one thing to think the economy is working. It's another thing to believe the economy and the head of the government is working on behalf of you. Americans don't believe that Trump cares about the average American. The percentage who do has hovered around 40%, which is right around where Trump's approval rating has been. That's about the same percentage of voters who believe the administration has done enough to help the middle class.
Indeed, changes in the percentage of Americans who think Trump cares about the average American have been correlated with changes in the his overall approval rating.
Instead, a majority of Americans think that the Trump administration has focused its efforts on helping wealthy Americans. "
"Voters think the economy is good and have thought that for a while. Trump is still struggling, even though we're well into year three of his presidency. If the economy hasn't already translated for Trump, when will it?
Overall approval ratings probably matter a lot more than economic approval ratings when it comes to a president's re-election hopes. Remember, voters disapproved of Obama on the economy and thought Republican Mitt Romney would be better on it. It didn't matter. Obama won. "
Trump has always struggled due to the toxicity of his name, which is why the hidden Trump voter was such a mystery in 2016 and what ultimately helped him win. The thing is that the public does approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, as per the latest poll and when it comes to voting next year the question will arise, do you want to continue with a President that you may not like personally, but has economically benefited you, or change and risk a President that may not economically benefit you. Even more so if a more socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders wins the nomination.
“President Donald Trump hits a new high on his economic approval ratings in a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, reaching 56% of Americans saying he's doing a good job on the economy.”
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/05/02/politics/cnn-poll-trump-economy-2020/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Famp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org%2F
Also, being historically accurate, the electoral college was set up to allow for slave states to get extra voting power accounting for their slaves as "population" without having to give them the vote. In a national vote, slaves wouldn't have counted since they wouldn't have been able to vote. With the electoral college, the white slaveholders could get EC representation amounting to 3/5ths of their slaves without having to give them the vote! Sweet.
To be historically accurate that is incorrect. The framers worried about corruption of the electors, and did not want to engage in direct democracy, so they found a compromise. The electoral college in it's creation would not have given slave states more voting power, in fact in 1791 it was only a minuscule difference.
"When it first took shape at the convention, the Electoral College would not have significantly helped the slaveowning states. Under the initial apportionment of the House approved by the framers, the slaveholding states would have held 39 out of 92 electoral votes, or about 42 percent. Based on the 1790 census, about 41 percent of the nation’s total white population lived in those same states, a minuscule difference. Moreover, the convention did not arrive at the formula of combining each state’s House and Senate numbers until very late in its proceedings, and there is no evidence to suggest that slavery had anything to do with it."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/opinion/the-electoral-college-slavery-myth.html