Several moderate Democrats from districts that voted for President Trump in the 2016 elections are coming out in favor of impeachment as the House vote nears.
Swing-district Democrats have in some cases felt pushback from their constituents against impeaching the President. However, on Monday many of those congressmen lined up behind impeachment.
“I will vote yes [to impeachment], knowing full well the Senate will likely acquit the president in a display of partisan theater that Republicans and Democrats perform disturbingly well,” said Representative Ben McAdams (R., Utah) on Monday. McAdams’ district leans Republican by a margin of 13 percentage points.
“If I wanted to do what was easy politically, I would just vote no and move on,” Representative Joe Cunningham (D., S.C.) told the Post and Courier. “But it’s about doing what’s right for our country.”
Representative Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) announced on Monday her intent to vote yes on both articles of impeachment. Slotkin, a former CIA officer, was one of a group of freshman Democrats to support an impeachment inquiry in a Washington Post op-ed in September. The congresswoman was subsequently heckled at town hall meetings in her district, and as late as last week she was undecided on whether to support articles of impeachment.
“Over the past few months, I’ve been told more times that I can count that the vote I’ll be casting this week will mark the end of my short political career,” Slotkin wrote Monday in the Detroit Free Press. “But in the national security world that I come from, we are trained to make hard calls on things, even if they are unpopular, if we believe the security of the country is at stake.”
Other moderate Democrats who have announced their support for impeachment include Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, and Andy Kim of New Jersey. Eleven Democrats, including presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, are undecided as to their vote.