Who's vulnerable?
Impeachment passes House, with freshman Dems doing what they were elected to do: rein in Trump
Who’s more vulnerable after President Trump’s impeachment? Freshmen Democrats elected in districts he won in 2016 or the president whose Republican Party lost those districts two years ago? (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
The U.S. House of Representatives voted along party lines to impeach President Trump Wednesday evening, supposedly putting at risk freshmen Democrats elected from so-called swing districts won by Trump in 2016.
But who’s really vulnerable? The representatives who did what they were elected to do — rein in Trump — or the president whose Republican Party lost those swing districts in 2018?
First the facts. The House approved two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power, by a vote of 230-197, and one for obstruction of Congress, by a vote of 229-198. The Illinois congressional delegation voted the same each time, 13-4 in favor strictly along party lines. The 13 Democrats in the House all voted for impeachment, with four of the five Republicans voting against. Rep. John Shimkus of Collinsville, who is retiring at the end of his term, didn’t cast a vote.
Political pundits say that supposedly puts at risk Reps. Lauren Underwood of Naperville and Sean Casten of Downers Grove, both of whom beat incumbent Republicans in 2018, and indeed Republican power brokers are already spending money in those districts to swing them back. But, in beating Peter Roskam, Casten won a district carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Underwood beat Randy Hultgren in a district Trump indeed carried, but by a slim margin of 3.9 percentage points.
Both were elected in the “blue wave” of 2018 that shifted control of the House from Republicans to Democrats. In short, the nation elected a House of Representatives that would rein in Trump after his turbulent first two years in office, and that is exactly what the House did Wednesday, albeit in the harshest manner possible — impeachment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed impeachment only after a White House synopsis of a July phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine revealed that Trump urged the country to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden while withholding U.S. military aid in its undeclared war with Russia. Trump then stonewalled against the ensuing congressional investigation by telling aides and members of his cabinet to ignore House subpoenas and refuse to testify under oath.
Again, those are facts. What’s not known is how the consequences of impeachment will play out — for those who voted on it, and for the president who’s become just the third to be formally impeached in the history of the United States. But some clues can be found in a table posted on Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com website showing how often members of Congress vote with the president, and how representative that is of voters in their districts.
The first thing that jumps out from that data is that it’s much more dangerous for members of Congress to side with Trump in a Democratic district than it is for a Democrat to oppose Trump in a Republican district. Since 2016, the top 11 Trump supporters in Democratic districts have all left Congress either by defeat or retirement. That includes Roskam, who voted with Trump 94.7 percent of the time in a district Clinton won by 7 percentage points, which gave him a “Trump Plus-Minus” rating of +39.7, which placed him in the top 10.
At the opposite end of the scale, of the top 14 Democratic representatives elected in Republican districts won by Trump in 2016, only three have left Congress — none of them from Illinois.
Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline is a perfect illustration. She voted with Trump just 24 percent of the time in a district he won by a whisker, less than a percentage point, in 2016, but that still gave her a plus-minus rating of -28.9. Even so, she won reelection in 2018 with an overwhelming 62 percent majority — the largest of her career in Congress — thanks to her devoted representation of voters in her district, both urban in the Quad Cities and rural in the surrounding farm areas,
It’s worth noting that Bustos resisted impeachment for as long as almost any Democrat in the House, and as head of the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee she urged fellow Dems to concentrate not on impeachment, but on the issues dear to their constituents, to “stay local” on matters like health care, farm trade, jobs, and the cost of prescription drugs. She issued a statement on impeachment earlier this week, saying: “With both a profound sense of constitutional duty and deep respect for the Office of the Presidency, I will solemnly cast my vote in favor of both articles of impeachment for Senate consideration. No one is above the law, and there is beyond ample evidence that President Trump abused the tremendous powers of the presidency to jeopardize our national security and that of our allies.
“As I cast this difficult vote — and as I have demonstrated since first being elected — my priorities are with the people of the Illinois 17th Congressional District. I remain committed to working with anyone from any party to continue to deliver for our region, state, and country. In the last weeks, we have passed historic victories for Illinoisans, including legislation that will lower the costs of prescription drugs for struggling families and seniors. We have worked with both parties to pass year-end spending bills that will help our veterans and servicemembers, improve rural health care, and strengthen our workforce. Finally, we have worked together with Republicans and the administration to secure a new trade framework between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, which provides stronger labor enforcement for our workers and renewed certainty for our family farmers.”
That is a member of Congress representing her district.
Casten voted with Trump just 3.4 percent of the time, which gave him a plus-minus rating of -6.1. But he also took pains to solicit what his constituents thought of impeachment in public meetings. His likely Republican opponent next year, former Republican governor candidate Jeanne Ives, charged that those public meetings were invitation-only, but that earned her a “Pants on Fire!” rating from the Better Government Association in a fact-check report. Indeed, Casten held a town-hall meeting in Downers Grove in September that was open to anyone who wanted to attend, and the turnout was overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment. Only one speaker, who described himself as “a Russian bot,” spoke out in Trump’s defense.
Underwood too voted with Trump just 3.4 percent of the time, but in a district he won by 4 percentage points, giving her a plus-minus rating of -32.9. She too has served her constituents by focusing on health care, which is exactly what she was elected to do last year, and she’s held 14 town halls. She explained her impeachment vote in a statement to constituents, saying: “The president has demonstrated a pattern of corrupt behavior, and abused his power for his own personal political gain when he pressured foreign leaders to conduct investigations against political rivals, jeopardizing our country’s national security and the integrity of our elections. The testimony and evidence put forth led me to a clear conclusion. In order to uphold my sworn oath, I must vote to protect the Constitution and will vote in support of the articles of impeachment.”
Most other members of the Illinois congressional delegation voted with their constituents as one might expect, to judge from the 2016 presidential results, with plus-minus ratings between -5 and +5. The double-digit exceptions were Republicans voting even more often with Trump than the 2016 district margin would indicate.
Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville has voted with Trump 93.5 percent of the time in a district he won by just 5.5 percentage points, giving him a plus-minus rating of +27.7. Is that out of step with his central-Illinois constituents? Davis won reelection last year, squeaking by with a majority of 50.7 percent, the lowest of his congressional career. Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, who got the other 49.3 percent of the vote, has already announced she’ll challenge Davis again next year.
Davis issued a statement on impeachment saying: “This is a sad day for the future of our country. House Democrats are moving forward with one of the fastest and only partisan impeachment in our nation’s history. These articles not only say the president should be removed from office, but barred from running again — denying American voters the right to choose for themselves who should lead this country. I will not vote to remove a duly elected president of either party or bar them running without a legitimate independent investigation and proof of a crime, neither of which exist in this case. I will be voting no and hope we can finally get to work on bipartisan legislation to improve the lives of hardworking American citizens.”
Nothing there on the known facts behind what Trump did, instead it’s criticism of the process. Will that cost Davis next year with voters? That’s why we hold elections.
But again it’s worth nothing that Davis’s +27.7 Trump score topped Hultgren’s +20.2, and Hultgren got beat immediately after both attended a Trump election rally last year. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro, where that rally was held, was the only other Illinois congressman with a double-digit Trump score, at +11.1, and he too went through a tough reelection last year and faces what figures to be another next year.
Who’s vulnerable? Voters will determine that next year, including voters nationwide on Trump, who’s likely to survive the upcoming impeachment trial in the Republican-controlled Senate set for next month, as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has already announced he’s working in unison with the White House in defense of the president. That’s in defiance of language in the U.S. Constitution calling for senators to be “impartial” in the trial. So even McConnell could be vulnerable as well when he too runs for reelection next year.