Trump using impeachment for a get-out-the vote push
LAS VEGAS — Gregory Hafen II looked out at a small group of fellow Republicans and tried to hammer home just how wronged he thinks President Donald Trump has been. The impeachment investigation in Washington is a mere political attack, he argued. “It’s witch hunt after witch hunt,” he said, glancing occasionally at his notes.
Hafen, a Republican state lawmaker and the rural Nevada chairman of Trump’s re-election campaign, had gathered with a small group of volunteers in a suburban Las Vegas public library to teach them to spread the word: “That’s why we’re here today, to encourage everyone to volunteer.”
At doorsteps and protests, in phone calls and social media posts, Trump’s campaign is marshaling its army of devoted followers to defend the president against the threat of impeachment. In battlegrounds states such as Nevada,
the effort — dubbed “Stop the Madness” — has quickly merged with a canvassing campaign already making regular contact with voters ahead of next year’s election.
“It didn’t seem possible to get President Trump’s supporters more fired up than they already were,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s spokesman. “Democrats have done it with their sham impeachment proceedings,”
Trump’s campaign isn’t just waiting for voters to bring up impeachment — it’s “owning it,” raising it on phone calls and doorknocks across the country, said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee. The campaign and the RNC have spent more than $10 million in impeachment-related TV ads already, with more expected in the coming weeks as Democrats begin their open hearings.
The RNC says more than 75,000 new people have signed up to volunteer through its anti-impeachment website, and more than 100,000 new donors have given money to Trump since House Democrats announced the beginning of the impeachment proceedings in September.
More Americans approve than disapprove of the impeachment inquiry into the president, according to late-October poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But opinions on the investigation are sharply polarized, with 68 percent of Democrats strongly approving of the inquiry and 67 percent of Republicans strongly disapproving.
Despite this support for the investigation, many Americans do consider the process to be politically motivated.
The poll found 53 percent of Americans think the House is acting mainly on a political motivation to challenge Trump’s presidency, while 43 percent think the House is acting mainly in good faith on its responsibility to investigate the executive branch.