SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Rep. Ben McAdams did what most of his 4th Congressional District constituents wanted Wednesday by voting to impeach President Donald Trump, according to new poll results that suggest the political fallout may be limited for the state’s only Democrat in Congress.
Forty-two percent of Utahns in the 4th District said they were more likely to support their congressman if he voted for impeachment, compared to 37% who said that would make their support less likely. For 18%, the vote has no effect and 3% weren’t sure.
But Eric Trump told reporters on a Trump Victory campaign conference call Wednesday that while voters in Utah’s 4th District may not remember the impeachment when they go to the polls in November 2020, “they will certainly look at the whole chain of interference and badgering and nonsense and games” against his father.
“I think that’s ultimately going to backfire on Democrats in a very big way,” Eric Trump said, promising “it’s going to come back to bite so many of these people. It will. You watch what happens in those 29 districts,” like Utah’s 4th, that went for Trump in 2016 and are now represented by Democrats who backed impeachment.
“I actually think it allows us to take back the House, personally. You better believe I’ll be working for that and you better believe my father will as well. These people have to be held accountable,” Eric Trump said, because the 29 Democrats in those districts campaigned on working with the president.
House Majority Forward, a group affiliated with the House Democrats’ super political action committee, has a new 30-second TV commercial set to begin airing Thursday that touts McAdam’ bipartisan efforts to control prescription drug prices. The group is spending about $120,000 on Salt Lake-based broadcast stations.
“Ben McAdams knows you have to work together to get things done. Thank him for working to lower drug prices,” the commercial’s narrator urges.
For weeks, TV commercials targeting McAdams on impeachment have been airing in the Utah market, paid for by a variety of Republican groups. He is widely viewed as among the most vulnerable House Democrats in next year’s election, after beating incumbent GOP Rep. Mia Love by less than 700 votes in 2018.
Utah’s three Republican House members, Reps. Rob Bishop, Chris Stewart and John Curtis, all voted against impeachment and the poll found that most voters in their congressional districts, unlike those in McAdams’, are more likely to support them for opposing impeachment.
Overall, Utahns were split on how a vote for impeachment affects support for their member of Congress, with 42% saying a ‘yes’ vote makes them more likely to support their congressman and 41%, less likely. Fifteen percent said the vote has no effect and just 2% weren’t sure.
The poll for the political online news source was conducted by Y2 Analytics Nov. 19-Dec. 7 among 911 registered Utah voters and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. Because the sample sizes in each congressional district were smaller, the margin of error ranged from 6 to 7 percentage points.
University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said it’s likely too early to measure the impact of impeachment on the 2020 election. He also pointed out the sample sizes in the poll by congressional district were small enough to create some uncertainty about the results.
Still, Burbank said, the poll looked good for McAdams.
“What the number indicates is at least that the political consequences are not as dire as some people thought,” Burbank said. Given the Republican majority in the 4th District, he said “the numbers could have looked really bad for him in terms of his vote and also in terms of what that means for his reelection prospects.”
Even so, Burbank cautioned, “he’s not out of the woods by any means.” There are at least four Republicans already campaigning for the seat, although the best-funded, state Senate Majority Whip Dan Hemmert of Orem, just dropped out of the race to tend to his dry cleaning business.
Rick Gorka, regional communications director for Trump Victory, raised questions about how the poll was conducted, saying the sample size for the 4th District was smaller than it should have been, “so it’s hard to gleam a true read at that amount of interviews.”
But Gorka told the Deseret News the Trump campaign has little doubt about what’s in store for McAdams.
“The intense internal struggle that has consumed McAdams on this issue tells me that he knows it’s a bad vote. We expect to beat him in November,” he said.
McAdams has been reluctant to talk about the issue. After reading a prepared statement Monday announcing he would vote for impeaching the president, McAdams walked out of his news conference in the Murray City Council chambers without taking questions.
“The congressman does not see this as time for politics and is focused on doing what is right for Utah,” his campaign manager, Andrew Roberts, said Wednesday. He declined to discuss the poll numbers and what they might mean for McAdams’ reelection.
Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Merchant said voters trust McAdams not to simply follow his party but to take all issues, including impeachment, seriously.
“He reviews and considers every single vote he takes. That’s why they support him in this action,” Merchant said. “They know he’s not treating it lightly. The bottom line is. how can you not support someone who is voting his conscience?”