Democratic New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew revealed some Democrats in districts President Trump won are having second thoughts about impeachment.
Van Drew, who joined Minnesota Rep. Colin Petersen as the only two Democrats to vote against the impeachment proceedings, told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, “So I don’t know how other folks will vote, because in all honesty, originally I thought there were going to be a few more. Not that it matters to me if I’m one or 101. I do what I believe is right. There is some discussion among some of them — quietly, privately — of concern, of concern.”
There are 31 swing-districts that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, though other than Peterson and Van Drew, no other House Democrat has come out against impeachment.
Van Drew, whose own congressional district has been dubbed a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday he is concerned that backlash could erupt from the impeachment proceedings that Democrats are leading in the House.
“If it’s not a true impeachment, if he is exonerated in the Senate, we are going to have the same president. And the same presidential candidate would have spent a boatload of money, an unbelievable amount of time, and not accomplished nearly as much work, as we would have liked to have done. So do I think that a [backlash] has potential? Yes.”
Impeachment hearings were open to the public last week with three witnesses openly testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Polls show little movement on either side over whether President Trump should be impeached.
Should Trump be impeached, Republicans in the Senate control the timeline over how long a trial can last, which could negatively affect 2020 Democratic senators running for the presidential nomination.
