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The Democrats are in disarray and face a number of problems winning the 2020 election. For starters, the Democratic presidential nomination process is highly fluid. In early primary and caucus states, no candidate has managed to sustain a lead over time. The criteria for qualifying for a debate slot and the debates themselves have hurt candidates and the party. The most moderate voices and lesser-funded candidates do not qualify for the debate stage.

At the debates, the media panelists goad candidates to attack each other. They dig up long-forgotten or controversial comments and challenge candidates to defend themselves. Candidates, to win attention, outdo each other in moving to the left or in making bold declarations on controversial issues such as Medicare for All.

Former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenPrimary debates threaten to leave people of color behind Longtime campaign aide vows Sanders will continue to combat political establishment as president 2019 in Photos: 35 pictures in politics MORE, the initial front-runner, has been an embarrassment. He is not a good debater, is inarticulate, seems to be confused and out of touch, and makes numerous gaffes.

Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann Warren2019 in Photos: 35 pictures in politics Warren in Christmas tweet slams CBP for treatment of detainees Buttigieg surrogate: Impeachment is 'literally a Washington story' MORE (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersLongtime campaign aide vows Sanders will continue to combat political establishment as president 2019 in Photos: 35 pictures in politics Buttigieg surrogate: Impeachment is 'literally a Washington story' MORE (I-Vt.) have staked out far-left positions and have minimal support outside of progressive Democrats. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete ButtigiegPeter (Pete) Paul ButtigiegBloomberg has already spent 0 million on ads in presidential race Buttigieg surrogate: Impeachment is 'literally a Washington story' Buttigieg campaign introduces contest for lowest donation MORE has limited recognition and support among blue-collar and minority Democratic voting blocs.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, noting the disarray in the Democratic field, has entered the contest. He wisely refuses to get sucked into the early primary and caucus battles. He is actively campaigning, counting on doing well in early March's Super Tuesday primaries, where one-third of the convention delegates are at stake.

The Democrats should be wary of the Jeremy Corbyn-Labour Party effect: A socialist-focused agenda and failure to confront anti-Semitism in the party is a losing strategy.

Another problem Democratic candidates face is the impeachment process. Impeachment has become a partisan political brawl. It has not gained support among Republican voters, who are strongly opposed, or among independent voters, who are evenly divided on its appropriateness. Recent Politico-Morning Consult polling shows overall support for impeachment barely breaking the 50 percent range. Further, polls of voters in battleground states revealed that impeachment is unpopular there.

Without broad-based support, impeachment will backfire on the Democrats. It will hurt their 2020 presidential election prospects. The Republican-controlled Senate will surely acquit. President TrumpDonald John TrumpGermans think Trump is more dangerous to world peace than Kim Jong Un and Putin: survey Trump jokes removal of 'Home Alone 2' cameo from Canadian broadcast is retaliation from 'Justin T' Trump pushed drug cartel policy despite Cabinet objections: report MORE will claim vindication and victory and be in a better position to win the 2020 Electoral College vote.

Many Democratic strategists are engaged in magical thinking. They seem to believe that ascendant voters 18- to 24-year olds, millennials, younger single women, minorities and people of color will march en masse into the voting booths and support the Democratic presidential candidate. Past voting patterns do not support this scenario. Ascendant voters are fickle and are likely to either not vote at all or support third-party candidates.

Most troubling for the Democrats is the abandonment of the non-college-educated, blue-collar working class,whichhas always been a faithful and key voting bloc. Many Democrats disparageits more traditional social and cultural outlook. Democrats lecture these voters about lifelong learning, STEM education, preparing for the new global economy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This attitude, as illustrated by the 2016 Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonChelsea Clinton thanks GOP congressman for tweet depicting her father's 'quick reflexes' Some kids will spend Christmas in border cages Michael Moore: Sanders can beat Trump in 2020 MORE candidacy, taints the partys presidential prospects. It must be avoided by the current crop of candidates.

Most Democrats have turned away from the concerns of working-class voters loss of livable-wage jobs to globalization and unfair trade arrangements. Instead, the candidates take on a global citizen perspective, playing into the Trump nationalist narrative. Biden, Sanders and Warren are courting union members with promises of wage increases for lower-wage employees, not the creation or return of high-wage employment.

Impeachment does not appear to be an effective tool for Democrats. The ascendant voters have not yet ascended in sufficient numbers. Candidates have not as yet appealed to the traditional working-class Democratic base. What are the Democrats to do?

Whoever the nominee, he or she needs to build a realistic winning coalition that includes the formerly dependable non-college-educated blue-collar voters. Also, they need to focus on winning the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina.

This will entail a careful balance a more moderate tone, an empathetic embrace of the working class and a progressive agenda for those ascendant voters who do go to the polls. A Democratic victory is possible. But so far, it is not looking likely. The alternative: four more years of the Trump presidency.

Joshua Sandman, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at the University of New Haven. He has studied the presidency for more than five decades.

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Democrats in disarray: 2020 election at risk | TheHill - The Hill

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in some regards might be considered the second most powerful Democrat in the country right now. He is second-in-command in the chamber behind Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and he was given a primetime speaking slot before last week's vote to impeach President Trump. Yet Hoyer is also about to become the latest prominent Democrat to face a serious primary challenge.

The House leadership is simply not cutting the mustard, Hoyer's challenger, McKayla Wilkes, told The Week in an interview. A young black woman from a working-class background, she says current party leaders are out of touch with the country and their own districts. "Hoyer and Pelosi are leading the party badly," she said, "because they're taking tons of corporate money, not standing up to Trump, and they're not championing crucial ideas like Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal."

Wilke's challenge is rightly seen as part of a growing leftist insurgency within the Democratic Party. If she manages to knock off Hoyer, it might be the strongest signal yet that the movement is winning the battle for the future of the party.

To be sure, party leadership was always going to be a challenge after Democrats won control of the House in 2018. The rise of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren has demonstrated that the party's previous moderate consensus has fractured. There is a large appetite from progressive voters for more confrontational, left-wing politics, particularly among younger people, a sentiment which is only growing as Millennials reach early middle age and Generation Z reaches voting age. It was these voters who largely propelled the victories of fresh faces like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib.

And yet, the House leadership including Hoyer, which essentially holds institutional control of the party so long as President Trump remains in office, has done little to capitalize on this movement. Instead, they treat the left wing much as they did in the 1990s: as annoying gadflies to be ignored whenever possible.

Instead of a full-bore attack on Trump, they opted for a narrow impeachment focused solely on the Ukraine scandal and only after dragging their feet for months. Instead of locking Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, or Mike Pompeo in the House basement to force them to testify, they proceeded with the impeachment vote without hearing from some of the central conspirators. And they have largely ignored Trump's wildly corrupt and unconstitutional profiteering off the presidency, not including it in the impeachment inquiry or any other major investigative hearing.

Their legislative priorities have also been less than bold. They passed a trade deal with Mexico and Canada that allows Trump to claim victory in his favorite policy area. And while they have passed a number of messaging bills that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promptly bottled up, even there the leadership has stymied the left. House leadership froze out progressives from negotiation over a bill to ostensibly lower drug prices, pushing a weak version that included one absolutely loony provision that would increase drug costs outside of Medicare so that program could get more money. That was removed only when the Congressional Progressive Caucus threatened to vote against the bill.

This brings me back to Hoyer's home turf, Maryland's 5th District. It is a very comfortably blue area: In every election since 1998, none of Hoyer's various Republican opponents got over 36 percent of the vote. Yet Hoyer is squarely in the middle of the Democratic caucus, and on its right in some areas he voted for the Iraq War, is a firm partisan of Israel, voted for Wall Street deregulation in 2000, and voted to give China permanent normal trade relations that same year.

All these are major reasons why Wilkes is running. "My vision of the Democratic Party is a party that doesn't take corporate money and instead of triangulating to reach 2 percent of swing voters, does a ton of organizing to reach people who don't normally vote."

Her campaign is also about specific Maryland concerns on which Hoyer has failed to deliver. Wilkes supports a massive program of 7 million new social housing units not just because her district has a severe housing affordability problem, but because "I have friends, actually, who live in the woods in an abandoned school bus," she says. She supports sweeping criminal justice reform not just because of the mass incarceration crisis, but because she has personal experience with the Kafkaesque prison bureaucracy, having once been jailed without bail for the ridiculously piddling offense of driving on a suspended license. She supports Medicare-for-all not just because it is good policy, but because she personally knows "people struggling with long-term care, preventative care, and drug prices." Wilkes supports the Green New Deal not just because of climate change in general, but because her district's coastal communities are under dire threat from rising sea levels. "In Anne Arudnel County, in St. Mary's County, people are concerned about the level of the sea rise. People have homes that are on the water," she says. "It's actually amazing that we haven't been wiped out by a massive flood, because there are parts of Maryland that are surrounded by water."

World greenhouse gas emissions reached yet another record high in 2019. Neither the 5th District nor the country as a whole can afford more Democratic Party dithering as happened during the Obama years, with minor subsidies for renewables coupled to an epic fracking binge that made the U.S. the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world.

It's a bit hard to understand the mindset of the Democratic leadership. Age is certainly one factor. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (who has a primary challenger herself in attorney Shahid Buttar) is 79 years old. Hoyer is 80. Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is 77. At that age, it's rather common to get stuck in one's ways.

But it's not the whole story. Bernie Sanders, the most famous leader of left-wing Democrats, is 78. Elizabeth Warren is 70. Clearly being old in itself is no barrier to progressive politics or to being enormously popular among young people. No, the issue with Pelosi and company is not their age so much as how long they have been in politics, and particularly how long they have been at the top of the party.

Both Hoyer and Pelosi were elected in the 1980s, and both have been in and out of various House leadership positions for decades. Top Democrats of this generation internalized the Reagan revolution believing that the New Deal was dead and buried, that capitalism is basically good, and that America is an unalterably center-right country. Hence left-wing candidates always lose (1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004, and 2016 notwithstanding) and the best that be done for the American people are fiddly tax credits and janky market-friendly schemes like ObamaCare. And while it is always possible for someone to change their mind, the top House Democrats plainly have no intention of doing so.

The only way to change direction, it seems, is to knock the leadership out of their individual seats, and put in some fresh folks with fighting spirit. A leader can't "be a leader in just name only. You have to be a leader and actions have to show that. We have to be bold and we have to be brave," says Wilkes. Leadership is about "sticking your neck out there for the people who actually elected you." Her primary is April 28.

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Democratic leadership should be afraid of McKayla Wilkes - The Week

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., speaks with ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., at Monday's impeachment hearing. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., speaks with ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., at Monday's impeachment hearing.

Updated at 6:51 p.m. ET

Democrats in the House took the next step toward impeachment on Monday with the presentation of what they call the evidence of President Trump's improper conduct in the Ukraine affair.

"President Trump's persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security," said Daniel Goldman, the Democratic staff counsel who presented the Democrats' case in the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Goldman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, presented evidence congressional investigators had gathered about what he called Trump's "months-long scheme to solicit foreign help in his 2020 reelection campaign, withholding official acts from the government of Ukraine in order to coerce and secure political interference in our domestic affairs."

Democrats said they believe the case for taking action is obvious.

"The evidence shows that Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, has put himself before his country," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York said in his opening statement. "He has violated his most basic responsibilities to the people. He has broken his oath."

Republican ranking member Doug Collins of Georgia argued that Democrats are pursuing impeachment because of a "personal vendetta."

"They can't get over the fact that Donald J. Trump is president of the United States," Collins said, "and they don't think they have a candidate who can beat [him]. It's all a show."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., confirmed last week that she and her lieutenants have decided to draft articles of impeachment against President Trump. So now, the Judiciary Committee says it must first receive the Intelligence Committee's report formally and then assess what charges to prefer.

"Read the Transcripts!"

During the hearing, President Trump asked his Twitter followers to read the account of the phone call he had on July 25 with his Ukrainian counterpart.

"Read the Transcripts!" he wrote.

But interpretation of a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is the key to whether what the president did was improper and impeachable.

During that call, according to a call summary released by the White House, Trump asked for a "favor, though" after Zelenskiy mentioned key weapons that Ukraine needs and has been using in its fight against Russia at its eastern border.

Trump proceeded to ask for help investigating two conspiracy theories one about Ukraine's involvement in the 2016 election (for which there is no evidence) and a conspiracy theory about former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter's role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

Several witnesses, which included senior diplomats and national security officials, testified over the past few weeks that they thought the call was inappropriate, that the request was political and intended to help the president's reelection and not about corruption writ large in Ukraine.

What's more, the American public says that what the president did was wrong 70% in the most recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll said it is not acceptable for a president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent.

The Trump administration was withholding a White House meeting and almost $400 million in military aid, while a pressure campaign was taking place, led by the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who had multiple contacts with Giuliani, the president and Ukrainian officials, testified that there was a "quid pro quo." He said a White House meeting was being held up until Ukraine announced the investigations Giuliani and President Trump sought. That meeting has never happened.

The aid was eventually released Sept. 11 without explanation.

Republican counsel Stephen Castor, who asked many of the questions during the Intelligence Committee hearings, questioned the strength of Sondland's testimony. He said Sondland had "no firsthand knowledge" of a direct "quid pro quo" linkage to President Trump.

"He merely presumed there were preconditions," Castor said.

Castor said Democrats are centering their evidence of wrongdoing on the call summary the White House released with Ukraine's president. But, he contended, "it is not" evidence of of impeachable conduct. He also called Democrats' reasoning "baloney."

Castor was also critical of Democrats' timeline for impeachment, calling it an "artificial and arbitrary" deadline. On the process, which began in September, he accused Democrats of "fundamentally unfair" tactics, calling the impeachment inquiry a "rushed, take-it-or-leave-it approach."

One of the potential articles of impeachment Democrats could bring against the president is obstruction of Congress. That centers on the number of witnesses and documents that have not been released from the Trump administration despite subpoenas for those witnesses and documents.

Castor later contended that Trump was "not asking for a personal favor" on the phone call with Zelenskiy.

"He was speaking on behalf of the American people," Castor said.

Republican complaints about phone records

Beyond the contents of that Trump-Zelenskiy call, Republicans voiced frustration with congressional investigators gathering phone records of key players involved in the pressure campaign. Those records included, perhaps surprisingly, Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Nunes was integral in the questioning of witnesses during the public and private impeachment proceedings and depositions. He strongly made the case for the president and against the Democratic process, in particular.

The records found several contacts between Nunes, Giuliani, and Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who has been indicted by federal prosecutors for violating bans on straw and foreign donors.

Collins objected to those phone records being included and demanded to know of Goldman who ordered them to be included. He called their inclusion a "gratuitous drive by" and a "smear campaign."

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin went so far as to call it "a clear abuse of power" and that those who issued the subpoenas and released the records "should be ashamed of themselves." He then added, "The surveillance state can get out of control."

Goldman declined to get into the details of how the investigation was conducted, but said subpoenaing phone records was standard practice in this type of investigation.

Progress toward impeachment

Nadler's committee will be tasked with writing articles of impeachment against the president that could include abuse of power and bribery, obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice.

"We'll bring articles of impeachment presumably before the committee at some point later in the week," Nadler said Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press.

Nadler, though, said he had not yet decided which articles to bring. A sticking point among some Democrats is whether to include findings of the Mueller Russia investigation to support an obstruction of justice article.

Republicans led by ranking member Collins have complained all along about the impeachment process and argue that the case about Ukraine not only is meritless, but that Nadler and Democrats have been reckless and sloppy.

The Judiciary Committee would charged with introducing, then amending the articles of impeachment. Then, the committee, controlled by Democrats, would vote on whether to send the articles for a vote of the full House. That is expected before Christmas.

If a majority of the House supports it, that would trigger a Senate trial, likely in January. Republicans control the upper chamber, and they're expected to acquit Trump. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he'll convene a trial as required under the Constitution but that he thinks it's "inconceivable" that the needed 20 Republicans would break ranks to remove Trump.

Trump, for his own part, has said he hopes the House moves quickly to impeach him in order to set up a Senate trial that Republicans could use for their own political purposes.

The Trump administration has so far declined to participate in the process.

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In Impeachment Hearing, Democrats Argue Trump Actions Are 'Clear And Present Danger' - NPR

Impeachment is a rarely used procedure that often comes with some misunderstanding. The Associated Press explains the process. (Oct. 15) AP

WASHINGTON Rep.Elissa Slotkin can tell when another TV ad criticizing her recent vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump has just aired in her central Michigan district: the angry calls to her congressional office spike.

As a Democratrepresenting a district Trump won handily in 2016, the former CIA analyst is used to navigating choppy political waters on a host of controversial issues. But now with a historicvote to impeach the president just days away, the freshman is facing the toughest moment of her nascent career on Capitol Hill.

"Theres over $1 million in attack ads running in my district on this issue. I knew when I called for an inquiry, it would be controversial," Slotkin recently told USA TODAY. "You just have to watch my town halls to know it has been."

Shes not alone.

Thirty other Democrats from Trump districts,most of whom are freshmen,will be casting voteson the politically volatile issuethisweek. With hard-liners on both sides dug in, those centrists will be the ones decidingwhether Trump becomes the third president ever to be impeached.

More: For 3rd time in US history, full House to vote on impeachment of a president

So far, the handful of Trump district Democrats who have announced how they'll vote are breaking in favor of impeaching the president on at least one of the two articles abuse of power and obstruction of Congress that the House Judicatory Committee approved Friday.

The panel passed both articles 23-17 along party lines, puttingimpeachment before the full House as soon as Wednesday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif.,isn't strong-armingrank-and-file Democrats to support impeachment, calling it a vote of conscience. But to help them, she and her deputieshave found ways to entice moderates to support such a politically risky move.

Party leaders kept the articles narrowly focused on Trump's conduct with Ukraine and not on broader charges progressives pushed for, including thepresident's finances,hush-money deals with women,and the findings of the Mueller report.

Not happy:'Disgusted.' Trump rails against Democrats after impeachment vote, backs short Senate trial

The articles pertain toallegations Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine, an ally, to go after political rivalJoe Biden in a way thatwould benefit the president's 2020 re-election, and then tried to cover it up by stonewalling Congress from getting records or witness testimony.

Moderates said it also helped that leadership scheduled the final impeachment vote to be sandwiched between votes on two key issues: ratification of a new North American trade agreement and spending bills that include priorities for their districts.

That's given centrists theability to counter the charge from GOP lawmakers that the obsession to impeach has smothered any ability to get things done on Capitol Hill.

"My main thrust is to get people to know that Congress hasnt stopped working," said Arizona Rep. Tom O'Halleran,a second-term Democrat representinga Trump district."And theres a perception out there that it has. And its really a bad perception.Were continuing to have committee hearings and everything else."

But votingto endorse the removal of a president who remains popular among many constituents won't be an easy sell for Democrats in red districts.

Slotkin was part of the blue wave in 2018 that flipped the House to Democratic control. Because two-thirds of those Trump-district Democrats have been in office for less than a year, they lack the advantage of long-term incumbency that could help them weather a risky vote in a battleground district.

And their 2020 Republican challengers are watching.

Read the articles: Read the full text of the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump

As soon as Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democratwho represents a Trump district, told a local TV station Thursday he would support impeachment, GOP opponent Sean Parnell pounced.

"Hey@ConorLambPA,today you sold out the vast majority of people in Western Pennsylvania by supporting this sham," he tweeted. "You put your party, BEFORE the will of the people you promised to represent. The people of Western Pennsylvania deserve better. #PA17"

With a full Hose vote approaching, at least seven of the Trump district Democrats, including Lamb, have said they plan to back impeachment.

Only one so far JeffVan Drew of New Jersey has come out in opposition. The Democrat is expected to announce this week he is switching parties and becoming a Republican following a torrent of criticism from progressive Democrats about his stance.

A second Collin Peterson of Minnesota is expected to vote against it as well. They'll be joining the chamber's 197 Republicans, none of whom have expressed support forimpeachment.

With 233 seats and independentJustin Amash of Michigansupportingimpeachment, Democrats could lose up to 18 members and still have the 216 needed to impeach Trump.

Van Drew: 'Unsavory,' not impeachable: Democratic lawmaker explains why he opposes removing Trump

The lack of bipartisan support, which Pelosi initially said was necessary forimpeachment, has given opponents ammunition to dismiss the process as the partisan witch hunt Trump has so often labeled it. That criticism is likely to grow louder even if just a few Democrats join them.

In a story first reported by Politicoand confirmed by USA TODAY, agroup of Democratic moderates, including several representing red districts, briefly explored the idea of proposing a resolution to censure the president rather thanimpeach, believing a verbal rebuke is a more appropriate remedy than calling for removal.

While these Democrats say they realize a censure will not be considered, the idea showed a discontent by some of the caucus' most vulnerable members and raised questions over how they might vote.

For the 31 Trump district Democrats, it's a tough spot: vote for impeachment and risk losing the fragile coalition of swing voters that carried them into office last year or vote against it and face the wrath of progressives who want Trump punished.

Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman explains how a trial in the U.S. Senate would work if the House of Representatives impeaches President Donald Trump. (Oct. 31) AP, AP

There's already talk of a Democratic primary challenger next year against Van Drew.

The message that helped many freshman Democrats win in 2018 was a promise not to become immersed in the"circus atmosphere" surrounding the president, including partisan warfare, saidPatrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in New Jersey.

"That's the trick: there are two sides of this," he said. "You definitely have to thread that needle between keeping the baseexcited that you're still fighting the good fight and keeping the moderates in line by saying I was able to do the job that you sent me to Washington to do."

Rep.Elaine Luria, whose Virginia district went to Trump by about 4 points, said she will vote for impeachment. But she also saidit's important to show constituentsthat impeachmentis not stymieing progress on bread-and-butter issues.

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 24: Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., (Center) and Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., (right) speak to reporters after leaving a House Democratic caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol where formal impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump were announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.(Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)

On Wednesday, she attended a White House ceremony with the president where he signed an executive order on anti-Semitism.

"I'll stand with the president and next to the President when he does something right," she said. "But I'll stand up to him when he does something wrong."

Many of the 31 Democrats in red districts told USA TODAY they have yet to make up their mind on impeachment and are still reviewing documents, notably the 300-page Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry report the House Intelligence Committee issued.

But O'Halleran, the Arizona congressman, a former Chicago homicide detective who represents a district Trump won in 2016, said he has decided to back impeachment after reviewing the evidence much like he would a criminal investigation.

"I will vote to impeach the President because this bribery and abuse of power violated the constitution and put our national security and our international relationships at risk," he said. "In our democracy, we must hold elected officials accountable when they break thepublic trust and put their own interests before the good of our nation."

Rep. Max Rose of Staten Island, whose New York City district went for Trump by nearly 10 points, also is backing impeachment.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., reads a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 24, 2019. (Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)

He was one of the moderates whose opposition to a broad set of impeachment articleshelped convince Democratic leadership the chargesneeded to focus only on Ukraine.

"A president coercing a foreign government into targeting American citizens is not just another example of scorched-earth politics, it serves as an invitation to the enemies of the Unities States to come after any citizen, so long as they disagree with the president," he said.

No 'hate': Nancy Pelosi gives a sharp response to a reporter who asked if she hates President Trump

Earlier in the week, the formerArmy veteran who served in Afghanistan reflected on the magnitude of the decision, noting it was deserving of time and deliberation.

"I mean everyone's doing different things from calling key people in their life to pick their brain to rereading the intelligence reports, the testimonies, to some probably are praying, he said.

As monumental as their vote will be to the nation and their political legacies,many moderates interviewed said impeachment is not an issue that dominates back home. Constituents would rather talk about health care, the economy or trade, they said.

But in case the severity of the decisionis not lost on them,Republicans keep reminding them.

Centristswin: In hard-line Congress, moderates boosted with Trump impeachment articles, trade deal

After Pelosi announced earlier this month thatthe House would move forward on drafting articles of impeachment, Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, tweeted out polling in Democratic freshman Rep. Kendra Horn's Oklahoma district.

"Nancy Pelosi is marching members of her caucus off the plank and into the abyss," he wrote. "Impeachment is killing her freshmen members and polling proves it."

Although Horn told USA TODAY she hasnot decided on impeachment, her constituents in the district Trump won by more than 13 pointsalready have reached a verdict judging from the calls that flood her office from both sides.

"People have already made up their minds," she said. "I'm still of the mind that it is our job to take a look at all the informationand assess it in a fairand balanced way."

Slotkin said she's reading the transcripts from the testimony provided by the Intelligence Committee, studying the rules of the House,and speaking to members from both parties who were in Congress during Bill Clinton's impeachment 21 years ago.

"Im going to do what I was trained to do as a CIA officer, which is sit down with the full body of information and make an objective decision based on what I believethe facts are," she said. "Im not looking at polling. Im not looking at consultants. Im not weighing what this will do to my political career. I think this is beyond politics."

Contributing: Nicholas Wu

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Wrestling with impeachment: Democrats representing Trump districts will decide president's fate - USA TODAY

Fear That Good News for the President is Bad News for the Democrats

The stock market is roaring. Unemployment is at a record low. The economy added 266,000 new jobs in November. Though these things are objectively good, of course, they are less good if you are a Democrat and you dont want the current president to get credit for anything that might help him get re-elected.

Take Mr. Trumps announcement in October that U.S. Special Forces had killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State movement. That could be considered positive news for the president, some Democratic voters conceded in interviews, except that Mr. Trump presented the news in such an unpleasant way, they said, embellishing his narrative with unsubstantiated details about Mr. al-Baghdadis last moments.

Trump had to make a 50-minute speech about how wonderful he is, said Jane Worm, 77, of Dubuque County, Iowa.

In Durham, N.H., Barbara Feldman, 68, said she was worried that Mr. Trump would capitalize on the incident to bolster his popularity.

I do worry about his base, and his support, unless the young people get out and vote, she said.

For the last three years, therapists have reported an increase in patients who say that almost anything having to do with politics is making them uneasy, angry and hopeless, a condition that Jennifer C. Panning, a psychologist in Evanston, Ill., has christened Trump anxiety disorder.

In a survey of 3,617 American adults released in November, the American Psychological Association found that 56 percent said that the 2020 election was a significant stressor as opposed to 52 percent before the 2016 election.

It depends on what side of the aisle youre on, but for many people theres the question, What is going on with this country that someone can get away with so much? said Dr. Mary Alvord, a therapist in Maryland who teaches psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

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Democrats Agree on One Thing: Theyre Very, Very Nervous - The New York Times