House Democrats have spent the last two weeks publicly building the case against President Trump, but they do not have the public support necessary to remove the president from office.
Even after three days straight of first-hand testimony last week, public opinion changed little, if at all. A plurality, 48%, of voters still support the Democrats’ impeachment investigation, according to a recent Politico poll, but most still remain divided along party lines. And among independent voters, opposition to impeachment is growing, according to a recent Emerson College survey.
This polarization doesn’t bode well for vulnerable Democrats running in districts that swung red for Trump in 2016, and they know it. Several Democrats approached party leadership last week to voice their concerns. Republicans are out-fundraising Democrats in swing districts three-to-one, and as support for impeachment sours, some party members worry that they could find themselves out of job come November.
A Democratic lawmaker, who wished to remain unnamed, told Politico, “It’s like someone taped our arms to our side and punched us in the face.”
If Democrats were smart, they’d focus less on impeachment and more on the upcoming elections. Unless Democrats can start swaying more independents or Republicans, this inquiry isn’t going to yield results — the Senate is not going to convict the president, no matter how many expert witnesses the Democrats put on record. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party risks losing its majority in the House as public opinion continues to sour toward impeachment.
But the Democrats cannot give up on this process entirely. They’ve promised their voter base accountability, and abandoning this inquiry after months of making it the priority would make the Democrats look even more foolish than they do now.
The pragmatic solution would be a censure charge. Democrats have shown that Trump acted inappropriately in his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. We know Trump deliberately mentioned Joe Biden’s name during his conversation with Zelensky and that military aid was withheld.
But that is all the Democrats have. There is no direct evidence that proves the White House withheld aid in return for a political investigation. Although several of the Democrats’ witnesses testified that they did believe this contingency existed, they also admitted this was an assumption and nothing more.
Thus, the allegation that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo, an allegation that is largely based on hearsay and conjecture, has failed to convince the public that impeachment is necessary.
They could, however, be convinced that a congressional censure, or a formal declaration that Trump acted in a manner ill befitting of his office, is warranted. Recent polls suggest a majority of the public would readily support this kind of move. More than 70% of Americans believe Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were wrong, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, even if they don’t believe the result should be impeachment.
A congressional censure would allow Democrats to cover all their bases without putting their vulnerable members at risk in 2020. Though Trump would still be in office, he would serve the rest of his term under the House’s condemnation, and it would be up to the voters in 2020 to decide whether he should continue to do so.
