A Washington Republican establishment that has been hostile to President Trump and concerned that the White House is headed off the rails is united behind the president after two weeks of public impeachment testimony.
For three years, Republican lobbyists, strategists, and lawmakers have discussed their frustration with Trump in hushed conversations, venting to reporters anonymously about the latest in the string of controversies that have gripped this presidency. Yet after multiple witnesses lent at least some credibility to allegations that Trump abused his power in dealings with Ukraine, Republicans are defending Trump against impeachment and predicting the affair might boost his reelection prospects.
“This is clearly a partisan exercise that has little to no impact on most folks who reside outside the Beltway,” John Feehery, a Republican lobbyist, told the Washington Examiner. “Everybody knows how it is going to play out.”
House Republicans are unified against impeachment, and as the process heads toward a Senate trial, it has become evident there are few GOP votes to convict the president, let alone the 20 needed to expel him from office. That red wall of protection on Capitol Hill has helped foster support for Trump with Republican lobbyists on K Street and among party strategists throughout Washington.
But the key to goodwill from Republicans least likely to defend Trump has been public opinion. Support for impeachment increased in the weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated the process on Sept. 24, including with critical independent voters. The polling has since moved against impeachment, even as witnesses testified to their belief that Trump was withholding arms from Ukraine in a quid pro quo to get the Ukrainians to investigate his political opponents.
According to an average of polls tracked by FiveThirtyEight, support for impeachment across all surveys was 46.3%, with 45.6% opposing. That is a reversal from a high point of 50.3% backing impeachment versus 43.8% opposed that the FiveThirtyEight average showed on Oct. 14. In a recent poll of Wisconsin, a crucial 2020 battleground, voter opinion swung against impeachment compared to where it stood a month earlier. Additionally, Trump’s job approval ratings have not suffered.
These numbers, and the near-unanimous opposition to impeachment by Republican voters, have made an impression. Republican operatives now see little downside to the process, predicting it could push Trump and congressional Republicans over the top next year. “It’s helping Republicans right now,” said Jeff Burton, a veteran GOP strategist.
Republicans’ unconcerned reaction to impeachment stands in sharp contrast to their irritation with Trump and worries for their party amid, to list a few crises, the early stages of the Russia investigation, separations of children from migrant families who cross the southern border illegally, and Trump’s comments this past summer in which he suggested that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota should be “sent back” to Somalia, the country of her birth.
But most Republicans are not fretting about impeachment, nor are they particularly critical of the president’s actions, even when offered the cloak of anonymity to complain.
They insist the case presented by House Democrats is not compelling. And they take offense to an impeachment process that they say was designed to railroad Trump and marginalize congressional Republicans rather than uncover the truth.
“Thursday was an extraordinary day of testimony. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a huge day for the Democrats,” said a Republican lobbyist who has been privately critical of Trump. “But they have been screaming impeachment for so long, now that we’re finally here, it’s a shoulder shrug.”
