Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state is facing backlash and even potential primary challenges after voting to impeach President Trump.
“I can tell you that from old-time party regulars — people that traditionally and typically support Congresswoman Herrera Beutler — all the way down to your average ordinary everyday Republican voter, I can report to you that there is a lot of anger in the ranks because of her impeachment vote,” said Joel Mattila, chairman of the Clark County Republicans.
The Clark County Republican Women also said they will back a primary challenger to Herrera Beutler.
“If you cast this vote to impeach, you will never receive our support or votes again at any time in the future,” the group said in a letter. “Additionally, we will do everything in our power as the largest Republican Women’s organization in Washington State to recruit and elect a conservative candidate who will represent our values.”
Herrera Beutler was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last week after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“My vote to impeach our sitting president is not a fear-based decision. I am not choosing a side; I’m choosing truth,” Herrera Beutler said of her decision.
“To me, it was an issue of, when I’m a grandma, can I look at this dispassionately and say to myself, ‘I believe in the stance I took’? And I can tell you right now, I know that I will,” she added.
Herrera Beutler also said that her vote would perhaps polarize Republican voters in her state and that her seat could be in question, which some local Republican officials echoed.
“This was probably the one single vote that Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler could make that basically would almost eliminate her chances of making her way through the primary,” David Gellatly, head of Activate Republicans Clark County, said. “People want somebody else immediately to start stepping up. … There’s a pool of names that are very likely.”
Herrera Beutler told the Washington Examiner to “let the political chips fall where they may” and that she stands by her decision and with the Constitution.
“A ruthless mob that uses violence to stop the Constitutionally-mandated counting of electoral votes is an attack on the U.S. Constitution itself. The President either wanted the mob he helped mobilize to take these steps, or he didn’t care enough about his job responsibilities to try to stop them as they hunted down his Vice President and beat Capitol police officers; either way, it’s impeachable. Let the political chips fall where they may, but I am with my country and the United States Constitution,” she said in a statement.
