With the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry hearings over and the Judiciary Committee’s close to wrapping up, concerns are continuing to grow among moderate House Democrats about their reelection chances in 2020.
I’ve written previously about polls showing how the public hearings were backfiring on Democrats, especially when it comes to independent voters. There have also been media reports where journalists stated they heard rumors on Capitol Hill that moderates were “getting cold feet” on the impeachment issue, and that a censure option was being floated as an alternative for impeachment as the election year grows near.
As the process drags on, the panic is rising. CNN spoke Friday to anonymous House Democrats who are raising alarm bells about how impeachment could hurt their chances at the ballot box:
“The fact of the matter is this does have political consequences and the people who will suffer significant political consequences are our moderate members. In fact, there are on-year amounts of money being spent in districts all across our moderates. For our leadership not to engage with moderates at all to either talk about how they are going to message or what they are going to put in it, seems to be a giant oversight,” [one moderate] member said.
Another moderate Democratic member lamented that the information about articles of impeachment are “secondhand.”
“I would say look I am concerned about not knowing what the articles will have in them. I am concerned about the timeline of this whole impeachment process. For me, right now, I am struggling to see how the evidence supports impeachment at this point,” the member said on the condition of background in order to speak freely about internal discussions.
[…]
The House Judiciary Committee hearing also raised questions about how the President might have obstructed justice as part of the Mueller report. That caused concern for moderates who worry that the articles could reach back too far to Mueller and lend credence to GOP talking points that Democrats are trying to re-litigate the 2016 election.
Here’s the funny thing that House Democratic leaders and others in a rush to impeach Trump won’t talk about: The vast majority of Democrats playing the “we must do our Constitutional duty even if there are risks” card are Democrats in safe districts. Democrats like Schiff. Nadler. Pelosi. AOC. Those same Democrats also know they can lose a few Democrats next year in the election and still hold on to the majority.
So yeah, of course they’re going to be telling vulnerable Democrats to sweat it out and “do your duty.”
What these moderate Democrats are telling House leaders, in a nutshell is, hey, you may not be losing sleep over how this will affect my election, but I am. It’s also another reason why those same Democrats in swing districts appear to be weighing the information that is already in front of them a little more carefully than the rest of the caucus, which is why some of them are saying either on or off the record that the case has not been made.
As I’ve said before, the left’s non-stop obsession with impeaching Trump from day one has led to impeachment fatigue settling in among the independent and swing voters they desperately need to not only hold on to the House, but to win the presidential election. This is having a big impact on how middle-of-the-road House Democrats are proceeding.
If they do lose next year, Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for how this has so spectacularly backfired.