Tom Steyer Elected Speaker of the House

Based on the events that unfolded on Capitol Hill this week, it would seem as if impeachment advocate Tom Steyer had taken Polyjuice potion and transformed himself into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Up to this point, Pelosi had played it safe and resisted the urge to support impeachment in any form. That changed this week when Pelosi announced her support for an “impeachment inquiry,” which would basically entail ramping up all the investigations that the Democrats have launched into President Trump; with a particular focus on the concerns outlined in the whistle-blower complaint about the President’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Pelosi may not have had a change of heart if not for an op-ed written by seven freshmen members of Congress, many of whom had experience working in America’s intelligence agencies. Perhaps coincidentally, the whistleblower who has singlehandedly caused this push for impeachment also belongs to the intelligence community.  While the whistleblower’s identity has not yet become public, The New York Times identified the whistle-blower as a CIA Agent assigned to work at the White House for a period of time. This information, in addition to the fact that former Communist and Trump-hating buffoon John Brennan once served as CIA Director, prove that the long march through the institutions that corrupted Hollywood and Academia has also had an effect on the intelligence agencies once revered by God-fearing Americans as pillars of honesty and integrity.

While most of the House Democrats will face no electoral consequences as a result of their support for impeachment because they represent safe districts, many Democrats have taken a political risk by announcing their support for an impeachment inquiry. Three months ago, I created my Vulnerable Pro-Impeachment Democrats Encyclopedia.  The encyclopedia lists pro-impeachment Democrats who represent districts where President Trump either beat Hillary Clinton outright or Clinton carried with less than 50 percent of the vote. Some Democrats who represent districts where Hillary Clinton won with more than 50 percent of the vote could face backlash because of their support for impeachment but I think the ripest targets for defeat represent districts where President Trump enjoys stronger support.

When I released an updated version of my Vulnerable Pro-Impeachment Democrats Encyclopedia a month ago, only ten of the Democrats calling for impeachment met my definition of “vulnerable.” Therefore, my previous list of the “Top 10 Most Vulnerable Pro-Impeachment Democrats” included all of the Democrats calling for impeachment. The number of vulnerable pro-impeachment has exploded over the past week in light of the media firestorm over the President’s conversation with the newly elected President of Ukraine. Previously, the list of vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats only included Democrats who represented districts that President Trump either won with a plurality of the vote or that Hillary Clinton lost with a plurality of the vote. Now, the list of pro-impeachment Democrats includes Democrats who represent districts that President Trump won with a majority of the vote in 2016.

For the record, some of Democrats identified by The Hill as pro-impeachment have made their support for impeachment conditional on the information uncovered during the “impeachment inquiry.” In other words, they might not necessarily support actual articles of impeachment on the House floor. Still, the fact that Democrats in swing districts would entertain the idea of impeachment proves that they have decided to abandon their constituents by succumbing to the lure of lavishing praise from “the Squad” and the mainstream media.

The table below contains information about the vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats and the districts they represent. I calculated the “vulnerability” index by adding President Trump’s margin of victory to the difference between Mitt Romney’s share of the vote in 2012 and President Trump’s share of the vote in 2016 and subtracting the incumbent’s margin of victory. 

Incumbent	District	2016 Trump Margin	Difference Between 2012 and 2016 Republican Vote Share	Incumbent Margin, 2018	Vulnerability Index
Matt Cartwright	PA-8	+9.5	+9.7	+9.2	10.0
Andy Kim	NJ-3	+6.2	+4.2	+1.3	9.1
Antonio Delgado	NY-19	+6.8	+4.9	+5.2	6.5
Abby Finkenauer	IA-1	+3.5	+6.2	+5.1	4.6
Cindy Axne	IA-3	+3.5	+1.3	+2.1	2.7
Elissa Slotkin	MI-8	+6.7	-0.5	+3.8	2.4
Abigail Spanberger	VA-7	+6.5	-4.1	+2.0	0.4
Elaine Luria	VA-2	+3.4	-1.7	+2.2	-0.5
Haley Stevens	MI-11	+4.4	-2.6	+6.6	-4.8
Lauren Underwood	IL-14	+3.9	-5.5	+5.0	-6.6
Angie Craig	MN-2	+1.2	-2.5	+5.6	-6.9
Sean Patrick Maloney	NY-18	+1.9	+1.9	-11.0	-7.2
Chris Pappas	NH-1	+1.6	-0.4	+8.6	-7.4
Josh Harder	CA-10	-3.0	-1.5	+4.6	-9.1
Tom O’Halleran	AZ-1	+1.1	-2.7	-7.6	-9.2
Susie Lee	NV-3	+1.0	-1.2	+9.1	-9.3
Susan Wild	PA-7	-1.1	+1.7	+10.0	-9.4
Tom Malinowski	NJ-7	-1.1	-5.0	+5.0	-11.1
Kim Schrier	WA-8	-3.0	-3.7	+4.8	-11.5
Lucy McBath	GA-6	+1.5	-12.5	+1.0	-12.0
Steven Horsford	NV-4	-4.9	+0.9	+8.2	-12.2
Ann Kuster	NH-2	-2.4	+1.7	+13.4	-14.1
Peter DeFazio	OR-4	-0.1	+1.0	+15.1	-14.2
Charlie Crist	FL-13	-3.2	+2.5	+15.2	-14.5
Josh Gottheimer	NJ-5	+1.1	-2.2	+14.1	-15.2
Jahana Hayes	CT-5	-4.1	+0.5	+11.8	-15.4
Mikie Sherrill	NJ-11	+0.9	-3.6	+14.7	-17.4
Harley Rouda	CA-48	-1.7	-8.5	+7.2	-17.4
Cheri Bustos	IL-17	-0.7	+6.8	+24.2	-18.1
Sharice Davids	KS-3	-1.2	-7.8	+9.7	-18.7
Colin Allred	TX-32	-1.9	-10.4	+6.5	-18.8
Lizzie Fletcher	TX-7	-1.4	-12.8	+5.0	-19.2
Ann Kirkpatrick	AZ-2	-4.9	-5.2	+9.4	-19.5
Katie Porter	CA-45	-5.4	-10.2	+4.2	-19.8
Dan Kildee	MI-5	-4.2	+7.2	+23.6	-20.6
Joe Courtney	CT-2	-2.9	+3.2	+26.8	-26.5

As of right now, no House Democrat who represents a district that President Trump carried by double digits has jumped onto the pro-impeachment bandwagon. Should that change, they will definitely gravitate towards the top of the list of the most vulnerable pro-impeachment House Democrats. For now, these members make up the top 10 most vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats:

1. Matt Cartwright (PA-8): President Trump’s victory in the former Pennsylvania’s 17^th Congressional District probably caught incumbent Democrat Matt Cartwright by surprise in 2016. After all, President Obama had won the district by double digits just four years earlier. While mid-decade redistricting changed the partisan makeup of several other Congressional districts in Pennsylvania substantially, the partisan makeup of Cartwright’s district, renumbered the 8^th District under the redistricting plan, changed very little; going from a district that voted for President Trump by 10 points to one that voted for him by 9.5 points. President Trump received 53 percent of the vote in the 8^th District. 
2. Andy Kim (NJ-3): Kim, an Obama administration alumnus, narrowly defeated incumbent Tom MacArthur by a margin of less than two points in a district that President Trump carried with 51 percent of the vote. Considering President Trump’s strong performance in the district as well as Kim’s narrow margin of victory, this district looks the most likely to flip back to the Republicans of all the districts in New Jersey currently held by Democrats. Kim’s support of impeachment probably will not help him in the uphill battle he will have to face next year.
3. Antonio Delgado (NY-19): Delgado defeated incumbent Republican John Faso by a margin of five points in a district where President Trump won with 51 percent of the vote. As a supporter of the Green New Deal, he has not exactly kept in mind that he represents a large swath of the American heartland as opposed to a district located exclusively in Mailbu or Martha’s Vineyard.
4. Abby Finkenauer (IA-1): Finkenauer defeated Republican Rod Blum in a district that President Trump carried with 48 percent of the vote in 2016. Republicans appear to have found their dream candidate, State Representative Ashley Hinson.
5. Cindy Axne (IA-3): Axne defeated incumbent David Young by capturing a mere plurality of the vote in a district that President Trump carried two years earlier. Young has already announced his intention to run for a rematch against Axne. 
6. Elissa Slotkin (MI-8): Slotkin defeated incumbent Mike Bishop in a district that President Trump won by nearly seven points.  Slotkin joined six other freshmen Democrats in writing an op-ed for The Washington Post calling on Congress to impeach Trump “if these allegations are true.”
7. Abigail Spanberger (VA-7): Spanberger, who also contributed to The Washington Post op-ed, narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Dave Brat in a district that became slightly more Democratic following court-ordered mid-decade redistricting. In spite of the redistricting, President Trump still managed to capture 50 percent of the vote.  The list of potential Republican candidates includes Delegate Nick Freitas, who came in second in the Republican Senate Primary last year.  While Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie carried the 7^th District two years ago, Republican Senate Corey Stewart’s failure to carry the district last year likely contributed to Brat’s loss.  
8. Elaine Luria (VA-2): Luria narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Scott Taylor, who passed on a rematch in favor of challenging Democratic Senator Mark Warner. President Trump carried Luria’s district, which includes the city of Virginia Beach, with a plurality of the vote in 2016 but the district has supported Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine during the two most recent statewide elections. The performance of Republicans in the Virginia legislative elections this year will likely have an impact on the ability of Republicans to recruit a top candidate for this seat next year.
9. Haley Stevens (MI-11): Stevens won an open seat that President Trump won by a margin of 4 points in 2016. While President Trump just barely fell short of a majority there in 2016, it still swung away from the Republicans. Republicans definitely have a stronger pickup opportunity in Michigan’s 8^th Congressional District but they should absolutely work to hold Stevens accountable for her decision to go down the impeachment rabbit hole.
10. Lauren Underwood (IL-14): Only one person on my previous list of the top 10 most vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats made my revised list. As I explained before, “Underwood narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Randy Hultgren in a district that President Trump carried with a plurality of the vote in 2016. The Republican share of the vote shrunk from 54 percent in 2012 to 48 percent in 2016 but the Democratic share of the vote barely budged at all.  Underwood has not tailored her voting record and behavior to a conservative district.  For example, Underwood actually suggested during a House hearing that “the evidence is really clear” that the deaths of migrant children “intentional.” Underwood already has quite a few challengers, including State Senator Jim Oberweis, the Republican’s nominee to take on Dick Durbin in 2014 who had previously ran for this seat and lost, State Senator Sue Rezin, likely the establishment favorite, and Catalina Lauf, an attractive 26-year-old millennial who would replace the socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the youngest member of Congress should she win the Republican nomination and general election.”

Hopefully, the top ten most vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats will have new jobs after the 2020 election. Maybe they can join ousted Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill as MSNBC Contributors. I hope that strong conservatives committed to enacting President Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda will take their places on Capitol Hill. Taking out a majority of the vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats, as well as the Democrats representing redder-than-average districts who have yet to call for impeachment, will ensure that Republicans retake the House majority and put an end to the Presidential harassment that has defined the 116^th Congress.