It’s a question that’s perplexing Democratic lawmakers — particularly those in so-called “swing districts” — regarding how their vote for impeachment will be perceived: would support of the effort to remove President Donald Trump from office help or hinder their re-election chances?
Many Democrats are taking great pains to point out to constituents that their platform from 2018 wasn’t to impeach the president, citing other priorities that they wanted to focus on. Indeed, a number of Democrats said they wouldn’t have supported impeachment if the articles that were drafted included issues that looked beyond the Ukraine scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There’s some evidence, however, that shows the wariness of some Democrats should be muted somewhat. A tracking poll from Morning Consult released this week has found that moderate voters across the nation are typically more in favor of their representatives in Congress than not if they vote in favor of impeachment or removal of the president.
Respondents were asked if they would become more or less likely to re-elect their representative in Congress if they voted for impeachment. Overall, 39 percent said they’d be more likely to vote to send them back, while 35 percent said they would not. Seventeen percent said it wouldn’t change their views.
As Rs who voted against GOP tax bill and Obamacare repeal or Ds who voted against Obamacare in 2009 can tell you, breaking w/ the party is rarely rewarded by voters. https://t.co/mvfISYsk0c
— amy walter (@amyewalter) December 12, 2019
Those are pretty close numbers. But looking solely at moderate voters, the margins widen, in favor of impeachment. Forty-three percent of moderate voters say they would want to send their representative back to Congress in 2020 if they voted for impeachment, while just 29 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for them again.
The same question was posited about Senators, and their votes for removing Trump in a subsequent impeachment indictment trial. Again, the results show more moderates favor a vote for removal than are against it.
Nearly 9 out of 20 moderate voters (44 percent) say they would be more likely to re-elect their senator if they voted to remove the president from office, while less than 6-in-10 moderates (28 percent) said it would make them less likely to vote for their re-election. Twenty-one percent said there would be no change over how it would affect their vote.
The Morning Consult poll found that, overall, Americans are more in favor of impeachment than against it. Fifty percent said Trump should be impeached, while 41 percent said he should not. Those same numbers held true for how people felt about if the Senate should remove him from office, following the impeachment vote.
Trump’s approval rating in the poll stood at 39 percent approving his job so far, with 58 percent saying they disapproved.