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Rep. Emanuel Cleaver called for an impeachment inquiry on July 29, continuing the momentum in the House to get very serious about all those subpoenas the Trump administration is resisting and send the investigations into overdrive. But the momentum can be seen not just in the individual names added to the list of more than 100 representatives calling for impeachment inquiries. Philip Bump details how the calls for impeachment or impeachment inquiry have ratcheted up after a series of significant moments and have spread through the House Democratic caucus.
Before 2019, very few Democrats supported impeachment or an impeachment inquiry. The release of the redacted Mueller report moved the needle, as did Republican Rep. Justin Amash coming out for impeachment (he has since become an independent), Robert Mueller’s May 29 press conference, and of course Mueller’s House testimony last week.
As the calls for impeachment or inquiry have spread, the average partisan voter index of the members getting on board has shifted from the people representing the most Democratic districts toward the overall average. “When the Mueller report came out, those advocating impeachment represented districts that had, on average, a 27-point advantage for Democrats. Now the average is a 17-point advantage,” Bump writes. “That’s only slightly more Democratic than the caucus’ 12.5-point average overall.”