Impeachment Vote Will Cost These Dems Their Seats
They ran as moderates in swing districts yet voted like radicals.
by David Catron
November 1, 2019, 12:00 AM
During the 2018 midterms, dozens of “moderate†Democrats won House seats in swing districts by forswearing partisan feuds in order to concentrate on the needs of their constituents. They pledged to focus less on conflict than on finding common ground with their Republican colleagues. They also modulated their comments concerning President Trump and, when the subject of impeachment arose, insisted that it would be a divisive and unproductive exercise. Thursday, however, all but two voted in favor of a hyper-partisan impeachment resolution, exposing their campaign promises as cynical lies and ensuring that the Democrats will lose their House majority in 2020.
The Democrats, their bluster about the 2018 “blue wave†notwithstanding, have a particularly tenuous grasp on the House majority. The GOP needs to flip only 19 seats in 2020 to regain control — and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has already identified more than twice that number of vulnerable Democrats in districts won by Trump in 2016. Thursday’s vote has imperiled those weak Democrats even further by graphically illustrating that there really is no such thing as a “moderate Democrat.†Below is a list of Democrats who promised their constituents they would rise above the corrupting influence of the Washington establishment and are now likely to lose their House seats.
Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.): In 2018, Cunningham beat a weak opponent by fewer than 4,000 votes in South Carolina’s 1st District. During his campaign, and until just recently, he spoke of impeachment in the following terms: “I’ve warned members of my own party that a partisan rush to impeach the president would be bad for the country.†Last Tuesday, however, he announced that he would vote for the resolution. Like most of these faux moderates, he will tell his constituents that Thursday’s vote merely affirmed an ongoing investigation. This will not mollify the voters to whom he so brazenly lied. In a district that the president won by 13 points in 2016, Congressman Cunningham is a dead Democrat walking.
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https://spectator.org/impeachment-vote-will-cost-these-dems-their-seats/
