There won’t be many Democrats who break ranks on impeachment, but there will be some and we’ve got our first defector.

Democrat Rep. Jeff Van Drew has announced that “unless there’s something I haven’t seen,” he’ll be a no on impeaching President Trump. This comes just a day after Nancy Pelosi announced the drafting of articles of impeachment within the House.

🚨BREAKING🚨

Democrat Jeff Van Drew says he plans to vote against all the articles of impeachment "unless there's something that I haven't seen, haven't heard before." pic.twitter.com/swsGl9k7Bz

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 5, 2019

The possibility of several more following Van Drew’s lead is very real. Democrats in Trump districts know this is a losing issue as public support continues to turn on the matter. This entire impeachment fiasco has been shown to be a political mess and Republicans, to their credit, have actually done a good job at exposing it. There’s simply no high crime or misdemeanor present and swing voters are looking at this with more and more negatively.

Voters do not like being second guessed and run over. Trump was elected in a fair and free election. To attempt to remove him from office for what the Democrats are claiming is going to backfire, if it hasn’t already.

I expect there to be upwards of ten defectors in the House by the time this is all over. Further, there’s a very real chance several Democrat Senators could vote no on removal once it gets to them. There’s very little chance Doug Jones or Joe Manchin vote to remove Trump based on what’s been presented. Jones knows it’d be the end of his career (which is already likely to end in 2020) and Manchin always tries to toe the line.

Impeachment has been a complete fail for Nancy Pelosi and her caucus. Her instincts to avoid this fight were right, but she caved to the pressure and will now face the consequences. So will her party when some of her blue dog Democrats lose their races in Trump districts as a result. But AOC will be happy, so I guess she’s still got that to hold onto.

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