With the impeachment of President Trump finally reaching the widely predicted and almost universally expected anticlimax, one question remains: What are the electoral consequences, or the lack thereof, for members of the House and Senate for their votes on what turned out to be an inconsequential issue?
The press has featured plenty of speculation on the consequences for Republicans who have supported the president. That has remained true even though the underlying premise of such accounts is that the weight of opinion has been in favor of impeachment and removal. Last October, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would consider impeachment, and would go ahead for weeks without an authorizing resolution, many polls showed pluralities for impeachment (though it was unclear in many cases whether respondents understood that impeachment by the House, without conviction by the Senate, would result in Trump remaining in office).
From October through mid-December, polling showed pluralities favoring impeachment and removal resembling those of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 popular presidential vote. Mid-December saw a shift, with pluralities opposing impeachment and the percentages favoring removal falling rather than rising. This happened as Democrats made their case in the House, then delayed for a month sending the case over to the Senate, then presented their arguments in the Senate. Yet the focus on the fallout from impeachment has been on the potential political jeopardy for Republicans.
Since impeachment poll numbers closely track the results of the 2016 election, it is not very mysterious that Republican Sen. Cory Gardner faces a tough reelection fight in Colorado, whose upscale-heavy electorate voted 48%-43% in favor of Clinton. Nor is it surprising that Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces gangs of angry liberals in Maine, which voted 48%-45% for the Democrat.
Democrats also have high hopes of ousting Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona. The state was only 48%-45% for Trump in 2016, and McSally herself lost to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema 50%-48% in 2018. This time, McSally is facing off against Democratic candidate Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords. The Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss-up,” and polls show Kelly currently holding a slight lead over McSally.
It’s a little more puzzling that some Democrats are targeting Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa. While Ernst does hold a high unfavorable rating, Iowa went 51%-42% for Trump in 2016. Current polling shows the president ahead of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren for 2020, and Trump’s place atop the ticket will no doubt buoy Ernst in her reelection bid.
And the chances look iffy for a Democratic challenge to the open seat to which Republican Kelly Loeffler was appointed in Georgia, a 50% to 45% Trump state. Loeffler does, however, face a tough primary with Georgia Rep. Doug Collins’s late entry into the race, which clouds the picture somewhat. National Republican Senatorial Committee Director Kevin McLaughlin blasted Collins’s primary challenge as “selfishness,” saying, “The shortsightedness in this decision is stunning” and that it could hurt both Loeffler and fellow Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue in November.
But Republicans also have targets aplenty, and they are armed with the argument, over and above feelings about Trump, that the Democrats wasted time on a wild goose chase that never had any chance of success. Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who was elected in a special election over an unusually unpopular Republican candidate in heavily conservative Alabama, has for some time been considered a long shot to win a full term this year. Jones’s approval rating is one of the lowest in the Senate, and his vote last week to remove a president elected by a 62%-34% margin in his home state probably seals his fate.
Democrats could also have problems in Michigan, which, together with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (which have no Senate races this year), produced 46 critical electoral votes for Trump by less than 1% in 2016. Republicans have won only one Michigan Senate race in the last 40 years, but one-term incumbent Gary Peters has the lowest name recognition of any elected senator. He faces Republican John James, a U.S. Army combat veteran and businessman who came within 5 points of upsetting three-term Sen. Debbie Stabenow in 2018.
New Hampshire is also a close battleground. Its two Democratic senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, won their seats with just 48% and 51% of the vote, respectively. Meanwhile, Trump lost the state by only 2,636 votes. While three Republicans have declared primary bids, it’s still unclear who will challenge the incumbent Shaheen for the seat. Former Trump campaign manager Cory Lewandowski ruled out a run for the seat late last year, and it looks unlikely that former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost her 2016 reelection bid to Hassan by just 1,017 votes, will throw her hat in the ring.
And let’s not forget the House of Representatives. Optimistic liberals like to think of their party’s 40-seat gain in 2018 as producing a permanent majority, and many freshmen have been busy collecting funds and spreading their names over their districts. Votes for impeachment are not a liability for some of the 31 House Democrats now representing districts Trump carried in 2016. Three members from these districts voted against one or both articles of impeachment, and one, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, switched parties.
But votes for impeachment could be a liability for more than half of these 31 Democrats, many of whom could be vulnerable in any case. In an off-year election such as 2018, voters may feel free to switch to an opposition-party candidate to rein in a president. In a presidential year such as 2020, when control of the entire government is at stake, some voters may be reluctant to risk such a vote, especially if the opposition-party nominees are backing unpopular measures such as “Medicare for all,” a ban on fracking, and reparations for slavery.
Elevating impeachment to high visibility carries risks for both parties, the president’s and the opposition’s. In an era of straight-ticket voting, when most voters are aligned solidly with one party or the other, and when one party’s voters are solidly aligned with the president and the other party’s solidly against, the risks are relatively low. Only a few congressmen or senators represent districts or states out of line with their views. The risks today, of Republicans losing their majority in the Senate or Democrats losing their majority in the House, are low. But they are not, on either side, nonexistent.
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, and the longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
