While the White House wrangles with how best to respond to the launch of an impeachment inquiry, President Trump’s campaign and allies are taking the fight to Democrats in red-leaning districts around the country. They aim to deny Nancy Pelosi the votes she needs to impeach the president.
America First Policies, a nonprofit organization that backs Trump, will roll out a seven-figure spending drive with ads in the coming days warning mainstream Democratic representatives that they risk being branded as extremists by voters. A source familiar with the plan said the television and digital push would focus on issues designed to make Democrats think twice about voting with Pelosi.
“We are going to go after the members, the members that are going to have to make that hard vote come November when this investigation is all over,” said the source. “That they are not working for the American people.”
Likely targets will include members such as Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria, who captured seats in Virginia as part of last year’s midterm blue wave. They ran on promises to vote independently of the Democratic Party but announced their support for an impeachment inquiry with a Washington Post op-ed.
Pelosi’s announcement last month that she was launching an inquiry provoked an immediate fundraising push on both sides. In two days, the Trump campaign registered more than 50,000 new donors and collected $8.5 million as officials rolled out a slew of digital adverts and supporters launched TV ads.
The result was an election environment that shifted rapidly from overheated to febrile. Trump has spent the past week baiting opponents on Twitter, and both sides are already selling impeachment T-shirts.
Senior Republicans say they are waiting until after the fall congressional recess, when members return home, to gauge the extent of the threat.
That presents a window for America First Policies and other campaign groups that will be reminding voters of the issues they voted on last year.
“Basically, the message is that when these moderate Democrats were elected to office, they promised to deliver to you lower drug costs, they promised to work with the president to secure the border,” said the source. “They promised all of these kitchen table issues, and they’ve abandoned you for the radical Left in search of impeachment.”
“It will be a call to action: Stop the witch hunt, oppose impeachment,” the source added.
When Bill Clinton faced impeachment, his White House responded by creating a “war room” of lawyers and communications experts to insulate the president and his closest staff from the controversy as they waged a guerrilla media campaign against the accusers and the charges. They wanted to avoid a repeat of Richard Nixon’s strategic mistake: Bogged down in an avalanche of detail, he looked less and less like a commander in chief and more and more as if he was a step from the exit door.
None of that seems to be weighing on the mind of the current White House resident. Officials have ruled out a war room for now, leaving Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to handle the counterattack themselves.
“As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People,” wrote Trump in one of his daily Twitter fusillades.
Rich Galen, a veteran Republican strategist, pointed out that both Nixon and Clinton were in their second terms. Impeachment as a campaign issue made for a unique political landscape, he said.
“They are trying to maintain the fiction that this is such a tissue-thin issue that they don’t need a war room,” Galen said. “And it doesn’t do any good to have Giuliani and Trump out there making it up as they go along. How would a war room know what to say?”
But for the campaign, it is a mobilizing issue that will unite supporters behind a president who they believe has done nothing wrong.
“Democrats already had plans to impeach the president before he was even elected or sworn into office and were always just looking for an excuse,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. “They are trying to deny Americans the opportunity to vote for his reelection, and the people won’t take it lying down.”
