Voters are anxious and wary as Democrats pursue impeachment

EXTON, Pennsylvania (AP):

Evie Burt has long thought Donald Trump deserved to be impeached, even before the allegations that the president tried to squeeze a foreign leader for damaging information about a political opponent. But that doesn’t mean Burt, a 23-year-old independent in this wealthy Philadelphia suburb, is pleased with the Democrats’ accelerated push to accomplish that.

What about climate change and gun control, she said as she walked into a grocery store and bemoaned the “media circus” on the horizon. “The whole process of it takes away from important issues.”

At considerable political risk, House Democrats are charging ahead with impeachment, bringing along millions of wary voters such as Burt for the ride. Polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans opposed impeachment, and congressional Democrats did not wait for a fresh batch of surveys that would register the impact of revelations about Trump’s effort to push Ukraine to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden.

In the days since the news that has propelled the impeachment debate, The Associated Press interviewed more than 50 voters across nine states, largely in congressional districts held by freshman Democrats on the front line of the fight. The responses – ranging from frustration and sadness to anxiety and relief – point to the challenges Democrats face if they are to turn what they describe as a principled stand against corruption to their political advantage.

Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the step towards impeachment and say the development is a political ploy. Democrats and independents were not nearly as unified. Many expressed certainty that the president has committed impeachable offences. But they also were deeply sceptical about the wisdom of moving ahead now, worrying it would only serve to fire up Trump supporters. The best way to unseat Trump was at the ballot box, they said. Others fretted about the distraction that impeachment would cause.

“I don’t think impeachment is meaningless, but I don’t think it’s possible, so why try it?” said Agnes Anderson, a retired businesswoman and schoolteacher in suburban Chicago. With the Republican-controlled Senate unlikely to convict Trump and remove him from office if the Democratic-run House had voted to impeach, “I’m not sure we’re going to change any minds. So why go there and run the chance of Trump picking up more support?”