To impeach or not to impeach? The moral and legal case for impeachment is absolute and demands action. But what about the political case? Last fall, 31 House Democrats won in districts carried by the President in 2016. New members are at their most vulnerable when they first seek re-election, and it's difficult to earn someone's vote when your Party is working to impeach the President they voted for.
Impeachment could mean losing a winnable seat, like NC-09. Democrat Dan McCready has been running for 25 months. His first election was overturned due to Republican ballot fraud. His new opponent, Dan Bishop, is the architect of North Carolina's infamous, boycott-inspiring "bathroom bill", and has a long history of work on behalf of voter suppression. Dan McCready has been polling within the margin of error in a district that has been held by a Republican since 1963. This is a winnable race for Democrats, but since the mid-terms and rise of media coverage of the far left, including talk of impeachment, polling in NC-09 has shifted five points to the right.
The hesitancy to pursue impeachment is understandable. 17 House seats held by Democrats are rated "toss up or worse" by The Cook Political Report. With only 18 seats, Republicans can retake the majority. Worried yet? Only four House seats held by Republicans are rated toss up or worse. If Republicans control the House, impeachment will be off the table, along with investigatory and subpoena powers. If on top of that the President is re-elected, the consequences would be catastrophic to our democracy.
Still, the need for justice cannot be ignored. But whose justice? Is it justice for the President that we need, or justice for the American people? The American people deserve the truth, and blacked out portions of the Mueller Report, unfinished investigations in the Southern District of New York, refusals to comply with subpoenas, and minimalist testimony from those who do appear, show that we still only have snapshots of the truth, and that there is something truly terrible being covered up.
The stakes are unbearably high. The prospect of doing anything to aid in the re-election of the President is intolerable. Suppose the House impeaches and shifts the conversation we are finally having on policy, which favors Democrats, to all-impeachment, all the time? Suppose the House impeaches and the Senate immediately votes not to convict, and the President spends the rest of his campaign on a victory lap, lying his way to re-election?
Polling suggests the American people don't have confidence that impeachment is either warranted or would be successful. With Lindsay Graham, who once seemed principled in his opposition to Trump, tweeting "that whole Trump 3rd term thing is looking better and better", it's clear that there will be no support from the GOP.
But even if Democrats unite to support impeachment, it won't be enough. There must be support from the center, with independent voters. A new poll by Left of Center shows 57% of independent voters in Massachusetts oppose impeachment. If it's 57% in highly educated, blue Massachusetts, what must it be in NC-09, or in swing districts in Texas, Florida, and Georgia? Independent voters in Massachusetts aren't even convinced Russia interfered in our election, with 51% believing it just didn't happen.
And yet. The moral and legal justification for impeachment must be honored. Dig a little deeper, and opportunity appears. Almost one in five, 19%, of the people who oppose impeachment do so because they think it would help re-elect the President. 18% of the people who oppose impeachment think there isn't enough evidence yet. That means that if the current case, which isn't strong enough, could be made stronger by opening an impeachment inquiry and conducting hearings, it may persuade enough voters that impeachment becomes not a risk, but a strength.
As a public defender, I learned one absolute about going to trial. You don't do it when you think you've got the guy. You do it when, and only when, you have absolutely ALL the evidence you can use to convict. That's where Robert Mueller's upcoming testimony could start to make enough of an impression on independent voters that the needle moves. Even if all he does is read aloud from his own report, more of the evidence against the President will be harder to miss, and harder to disregard.
The risk of a failure to prove the case against the President is terrifying, but the moral and legal imperative to seek justice for the American people demands action. The people must see and hear all the evidence against the President. Once that happens, the case against him can prevail. It is too early to impeach at this point, but it is not too early to do all that must be done to make the case. Let the impeachment inquiry begin.
Mara Dolan is an attorney and Co-founder of Left of Center, a Massachusetts-based Democratic Political Action Committee.
