Trump impeachment: The issue Democrats can’t quite pick up — or put down

Rep. Jasmine Crockett isn’t shy about it: She wants to impeach President Trump.

Her main rival in the Texas Democratic Senate primary, state Rep. James Talarico, isn’t so sure. Like most of his party’s leaders, he has been keeping that particular conversation at arm’s length.

Mr. Talarico has instead zeroed in on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as his impeachment target. That position has found a lot of traction in the party since Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot civilians in Minneapolis.

The different strategies point to a bigger tension inside the Democratic Party. Some members say pushing Trump impeachment talk could blow up the party’s chances in races it needs to win. Others say that going after Mr. Trump publicly is exactly what the base needs to hear and could reshape the political map in Democrats’ favor.

For now, impeachment is an academic exercise. If Democrats capture the majority in November, then it becomes a real possibility — and, Ms. Crocket argues, a necessity.

“I think that there is more than enough to impeach Donald Trump,” she said at a debate with Mr. Talarico at the Texas AFL-CIO convention last month.

She’s got company.

Zelda Briarwood, a Democrat running in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, told a recent candidate forum that she supports impeaching the president on “Day 1.”

“Right now, y’all, we are speedrunning 1930s Germany. That is the reality. If we don’t nip this in the bud right now, fascism is coming to every single person’s door. We are already seeing it in Minnesota,” she said.

For Kat Abughazaleh, running in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, Mr. Trump’s ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro without seeking congressional approval was the crucial moment.

“This man needs to be impeached, convicted and removed as soon as humanly possible,” she said in a video post.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat in line to be speaker if his party flips the chamber, has been trying to change the subject. He is steering Democrats back to kitchen-table issues such as the cost of living, housing and health care, and rallying behind the Noem impeachment calls.

The thinking is straightforward: Even if most Democratic voters are on board with impeachment, making it a centerpiece could cost the party the competitive seats it needs to retake the House and might sink the broader wave it is counting on to flip the Senate.

Mr. Talarico has tried to thread that needle by leaving the door open to impeachment without actually walking through it.

Republicans, Mr. Trump included, have been happy to fan the flames. They figure that the talk about impeachment right now makes Democrats look extreme.

“The only voters who want to waste time on another fake, political impeachment are the most deranged, radical Democrats,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin. “It’s a diversion from the Democrats’ agenda of raising taxes, increasing wasteful spending, returning to high inflation, more illegal immigration and allowing illegal immigrants to vote.”

Mr. Trump was impeached twice, once in 2019 and again in 2021, after he had left office. He walked away with acquittals from the Senate both times.

Few of the Republicans who backed those impeachments are still in Congress. Those who are, such as Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan M. Collins of Maine, still suffer some blowback from MAGA voters.

A new impeachment effort would be unlikely to fare any better than the earlier ones.

Polling has shown a vast majority of Democrats, and in some cases a majority of independents, support impeaching Mr. Trump.

Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat who pushed impeachment in the first Trump term, forced a vote on the matter again last year.

Some 140 House Democrats, including Ms. Crockett and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, backed him.

Twenty-three, many of them in swing districts, sided with Republicans to kill the effort. Another 47, including Mr. Jeffries, refused to take a stand and voted “present.”

In the meantime, Ms. Noem has become the Democrats’ preferred impeachment target, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting a distant honorable mention.

So far, 187 Democrats have signed on to a push by Rep. Robin Kelly, Illinois Democrat, to impeach Ms. Noem over obstruction of Congress, violations of public trust and self-dealing.

Ms. Kelly is running to replace retiring Sen. Richard J. Durbin, and several co-sponsors are in competitive races of their own.

Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for the Senate in Michigan, has found a single co-sponsor for her resolution calling for the impeachment of Mr. Kennedy.

That co-sponsor is Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is running for governor of California.