Dem super PAC campaign urges Republicans to back impeachment

A Democratic group launched a campaign on Tuesday aimed at swaying Republicans to get on board with efforts to impeach President Trump, with a goal of “elevating” the voices of those within the GOP who have come out against him.

Scott Dworkin, one of the co-founders of the Democratic Coalition, an anti-Trump super PAC, said the campaign will largely consist of digital ads, social media and in-person action in their effort to collect funds and encourage people to reach out to Republicans on the matter.

“They like to paint a picture that no Republican in the world supports impeachment and that’s just untrue,” he told The Hill in an interview, adding they are looking to build on their previous campaigns using letters to Congress and fundraising posts to draw attention to their push.{mosads}

“If we’re going to talk about impeachment, we need to focus on the Republican Party and the accountability factor there and the words that they’ve used in the past, and, you know, present the argument that impeachment is not crazy, impeachment is not something that’s out of order.”

Hours after the super PAC launched its campaign on social media the hashtag #RepublicansForImpeachment began trending, with the group saying that more than 100,000 tweets had been posted using the phrase by late-afternoon.

UPDATE: We just broke 100,000 tweets with the #RepublicansForImpeachment hashtag! Let’s keep this trending!! 

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) April 23, 2019

The digital ads are expected to run in roughly 20 states, many of which are represented by Republican senators who voted earlier this year to overturn the president’s national emergency declaration at the border.

“We want to make sure it’s as wide as possible,” Dworkin said, saying the group is focusing on GOP senators such as Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Mitt Romney (Utah).

He also mentioned targeting “people who are in the states where they need to win in 2020, you know, like North Carolina and I think Colorado” – states where GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Cory Gardner (Colo.) are up for reelection next year.

The group hasn’t put any money behind the campaign yet, and despite a handful of outspoken voices like J. W. Verret, a former Trump transition staffer who recently called for impeachment, the effort faces a tall hurdle in attempting to get Republicans on board.

Top Republicans in both chambers have repeatedly called on Democrats to halt their probes, alleging members across the aisle are launching partisan attacks on the administration and pointing to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which did not establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

The super PAC’s impeachment campaign also comes as House Democratic leadership has attempted to tamp down a push to impeach Trump, with a number of members of the caucus expressing hesitations over moving forward with such plans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) held a conference call Monday, telling lawmakers: “We don’t have to go to articles of impeachment to obtain the facts, the presentation of facts.”

Dworkin said he thinks it’s important for Congress to continue its investigations into the administration, noting “if they moved on impeachment right now it would limit their capabilities of what they can get information-wise.” But he said he feels it’s important for Democrats to lay the groundwork for gaining support across the aisle is they are going to be successful.

“Until we have Republicans on board, it’s not about politics or political, you know, kind of posturing,” he said. “We don’t want to lose that kind of thing. It’s just logically it makes no sense to skip steps and we have to go in an orderly process.”

“But again, I think that we need to unite the country against this monster and make sure that we actually have everybody on the same page, at least the majority of us.”