In 2018, House Democrats won the majority on the back of an anti-Donald Trump fervor fueled by an impeachment rallying cry.
Eight years later, Democrats are favored to win the House again. But after impeaching Trump twice during their last spell in the majority, most Democrats aren’t clamoring for a third try.
House Democratic leadership insists any talk of impeachment is a distraction. Moderates want to focus on pocketbook issues. And even progressives acknowledge that there’s little to be gained from starting a process that’s destined to fail in the Senate.
“Literally no Democrats are talking about this,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said. “This is not something that comes up in our discussions at all.”
Reality check. The only way Trump will be impeached for a third time is if Democrats win the House in November. Even then, Democrats know getting 67 votes to convict Trump in the Senate isn’t likely.
It would be a huge risk if one of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ first acts as speaker would be impeaching Trump.
“The reality is we know that Trump, regardless of any impeachment vote, is not going to get convicted by the Senate,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the top Oversight Committee Democrat.
“When is it productive to take votes on this, and when is it productive for us to be out in the court of public opinion?” added Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair.
Some members of the House Democratic Caucus have still pushed ahead with impeachment in the minority, including Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas). The House tabled the Green resolution in December, with Democratic leadership voting “present” and issuing a statement saying they were focused on making life affordable.
But it might not be so easy for Democratic leadership to dodge this question if they take the majority, just like it wasn’t for then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi back in 2019. Pelosi resisted for months until the Trump-Ukraine scandal broke.
There’s the prospect that Democrats could open an impeachment inquiry into Trump without impeaching Trump. This is what House Republicans did with former President Joe Biden last Congress. This would give what’s likely to be extensive Trump investigations by Democrats a little more impetus.
But for now, House Democratic leaders have tamped down the noise by focusing on going after Trump cabinet officials, like former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
The politics. Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 faced resistance from moderate Democrats who thought the exercise would hurt them among swing voters.
“We have bigger priorities to focus on,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), the House’s battleground leadership representative, said. “We should listen to the American people that basically feel they’ve been betrayed by this administration when it comes to being able to make ends meet.”
Democrats also recognize that in toss-up districts, they’ll need to win over some of the same voters who went for Trump in 2024. The House battlefield is historically small and Democrats will need to capture some heavily red districts if they want to build a sizable majority.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) suggested another impeachment could backfire by “firing up the Republican base.”
“We’ve seen this twice already,” Cuellar said of impeachment. “To do it a third time won’t work.”
