The actual impacts of congressional Democrats’ decision to proceed with President Donald Trump’s impeachment remain to be seen. However, many of those Democrats’ counterparts on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), are optimistic it will be a net benefit for Trump and the GOP.
During an interview on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN on Thursday, Aderholt estimated that at least half of the remaining House Democrats that won districts in 2018 that Trump carried four years earlier would lose their 2020 elections.
“I think they are in a very precarious situation,” Aderholt said. “I can’t say honestly that all 30 will be defeated. I mean, obviously, some will run good campaigns. And they come from very toss-up districts anyway. You say Trump didn’t win them — he did win them. Of course, you’ve got to remember by some, sometimes the margins were very, very close. But at the same time — their member of Congress, a majority of the people have now had their member of Congress to undo, for all practical purposes from their standpoint, what they voted for — even though the president is not going to be removed from office.”
“They have made a lot of individuals very mad,” he continued. “They’re going to have a very large group of people from their districts that are going to be very furious at their vote. It’s not going to be easy for them. There could be as many as half of those 30 that could actually lose their seats.”
The Alabama Republican pointed to polling that suggests Trump is in a better situation post-impeachment and noted the disconnect between those who support the president throughout the country and those in Washington, DC.
“I think this is something that really helped his prospects,” he said. “You’ve seen the numbers in the news where his reelect has gone up. His disapproval has gone down. It’s just amazing how this has occurred. I think it goes back to the heart of the fact that most Americans know that this is politically motivated — that the Democrats were wanting to see the president removed from office from the first day that he was elected. And so many of them said that — went on record saying that we have to impeach him. Little did they know they would be impeaching him, but some of them were hoping that would be the case.”
“If they had taken the stance to say they wanted to work with this president and see what they could try to accomplish — but from day one, so many of the Democrats were ‘we have to get him out of office,'” Aderholt continued. “They truly hate Trump, and I know he is a different individual. He is not like Washington has ever seen. And there are so many people here in Washington that don’t like the way he operates. You know he is doing the things he said he was going to do, and I think most Americans in greater America out there — you take away New York, you take away California, and those regions of the country whole-heartedly support him.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor