Report: Democrats Have the Votes to Impeach President Trump

House Democrats now have the votes to impeach President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Siobhan Hughes, Lindsay Wise, and Natalie Andrews wrote Monday evening:

By Monday afternoon, at least 18 from the 31 Democratic-held districts that Mr. Trump won in the 2016 presidential race had announced they would support the abuse-of-power and obstruction of Congress charges, according to a Wall Street Journal survey, with two saying they are opposed.

In other words, given the recent surge over the weekend into early this week of announcements of support for Articles of Impeachment from a number of vulnerable House Democrats who had been holding out until now, the Democrats have crossed the threshold necessary to impeach the president–barring any unforeseen surprises.

The fact that Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan–an independent who left the GOP over his impeachment support–is going to vote for impeachment, and that there are four vacancies in the House, the Democrats need 216 votes at a minimum to pass Articles of Impeachment, assuming all House members are present and voting. That also means that if 19 total Democrats from these districts that President Trump won in 2016–of which there are 31–were to join all Republicans to vote against Articles of Impeachment, it would fail on the House floor.

One Democrat, a member of leadership, House Agriculture Committee chairman Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) has announced he will vote against impeachment. Another, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, has also announced his opposition to impeachment and is expected to abandon the Democrat Party over this and join the GOP sometime this week.

But, now that 18 of these Trump district Democrats–according to the Wall Street Journal–have joined ranks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s push for impeachment, only 11 more remain possibilities for no votes, meaning that is inevitable that President Trump will be impeached by the House on Wednesday barring some unforeseen outcome wherein several Democrats from somewhere else in the conference oppose impeachment.

The Journal‘s Hughes, Wise, and Andrews wrote:

With the new announcements of support, and assuming no unexpected defections, Democrats have enough votes to impeach the president. While Americans nationally are about evenly split on whether they back impeachment, according to an average of polls by RealClearPolitics, some of the Democrats in the Trump-won districts acknowledged potential political risks.

The bigger question that looms over this revelation is whether there will be consequences for those Democrats from battleground districts for casting this vote for Articles of Impeachment, and if so, what said consequences will be. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is leading the GOP’s effort to retake the House majority next year, is bullish on GOP chances of retaking the House in the wake of this impeachment push by Democrats.

“It’s not just me who thinks it, if you just look at the polling in their own districts,” McCarthy said on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 this weekend when asked if the impeachment drive is hurting vulnerable Democrats. “You remember what Nancy Pelosi was telling these Democrats, that it was going to get more popular. They go into the press. They control the entire meeting. They make it different than we’ve ever seen impeachment before. No due process. No ability for the minority to ask for witnesses. Controlling of the time. And it’s become less popular. If you look at the polling today, a number of these Democrats—Kendra Horn [from Oklahoma] and others, they’re going to become upside in their districts. New Mexico, 37 percent of the state only supports impeachment, where a majority does not support it. There is more places to play than just those 31 seats.”