Democrats grapple with ‘rising clamor’ for Trump impeachment ahead of midterms

From the campaign trail to Capitol Hill, a growing number of Democrats have said they believe President Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses in his first year back in office.

But with their focus on the midterms, fewer elected Democrats are willing to commit to impeaching Trump if they win back control of the House, given likely Republican control of the Senate and potential for backlash from voters.

Trump warns Republicans they have to win midterms or he’ll ‘get impeached’

Trump has predicted that Democrats will impeach him if they retake the House, and Republicans plan to make that threat a key piece of their midterm messaging.

“They will do anything to stop the Trump agenda,” Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said of Democrats. “People, if they don’t want a two-year president, who they voted for pretty overwhelmingly in 2024, can’t allow the House to flip.”

Instead, many Democrats said they are focusing on the cost of living and the state of the economy.

“There’s a lot for me to be concerned about,” said Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Democrat from Virginia.

Vindman is an Army veteran and former national security official who played a role in raising concerns about Trump’s 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the center of his first impeachment.

“The American people are concerned about costs, and meanwhile, the president is pursuing foreign adventures,” Vindman told ABC News.

Impeachment calls have picked up in 2026 amid the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s perceived opponents. A number of progressive Democrats from liberal districts and candidates in crowded blue-seat primaries have called for the impeachment of Trump and key cabinet officials. 

Democrats are also setting their sights on Cabinet officials: More than 80 Democrats have cosponsored Illinois Democrat Rep. Robin Kelly’s articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following the deployment of federal agents to Minnesota and the killing of a Minneapolis woman by a federal agent.

Still, Democratic leaders are moving cautiously ahead of the midterms, when they will need to gain at least three seats to win control of Congress.

“If candidates and members of Congress are not relentlessly focusing on people’s everyday lives, they are making a mistake,” former Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos, who led the House Democrats’ campaign committee, told ABC News.

“There’s so much of what President Trump has done, is doing, will do that can be labeled ‘impeachable offenses,’ but in the end what good is it going to do? Even if the House has the votes, the Senate will not go along with it,” she said.

The House has already rejected two impeachment pushes from Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Texas. In June, 128 Democrats voted with Republicans to block his charges over the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities without approval from Congress.

In December, just 23 Democrats voted with Republicans to kill a second effort focused on Trump’s comments about Democrats who posted a social media video urging service members to refuse illegal orders, while another 47 voted present.

In a statement after that vote, House Democratic leaders called impeachment a “sacred constitutional vehicle” requiring a “comprehensive investigative process” that had not taken place.

3 more Democratic lawmakers say they are under federal investigation over illegal orders social media video

“None of that serious work has been done, with the Republican majority focused solely on rubber stamping Donald Trump’s extreme agenda,” Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Pete Aguilar and Katherine Clark said, arguing that voting “present” allowed them to “continue our fight to make life more affordable for everyday Americans.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said there’s “definitely a rising clamor for impeachment.”

“Of course, it requires a majority vote of the House to get there, but we need a structured method of thinking through all the lawlessness and criminality taking place,” Raskin said.

Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old activist who is running for Congress in Illinois, has argued that Democratic leaders need to “grow a f—ing spine,” and do more to challenge the Trump administration.

She has spoken out and protested against ICE activities in Chicago, and has pleaded not guilty to charges that she interfered with law enforcement during a protest outside an ICE facility in Illinois last fall that went viral on social media.

“One of the most critical failures in American politics is how our leaders have instilled this feeling that we shouldn’t fight for the world we want to see, that we shouldn’t take measures towards a future that we want to live in,” she told ABC News.

“Impeachment is just another tool in the accountability machine that’s supposed to work, but it doesn’t,” she said.

Raskin, who would lead impeachment proceedings in a Democratic House, said he would be “moving very quickly” in the next two months on “announcing a systematic way of thinking” about the various actions of the Trump administration that Democrats find objectionable, and potentially worth investigating.