President Donald Trump is rewarding senators who have his back on impeachment — and sending a message to those who don’t to get on board.
On Wednesday, the Trump reelection campaign sent a fundraising appeal to its massive email list urging donors to provide a contribution that would be divided between the president and Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Each of the senators are supporting the anti-impeachment resolution despite being endangered in 2020.
Absent from the list is Maine Senator Susan Collins, who refuses to take a stance on impeachment, saying that she doesn’t want to prejudge the impeachment proceedings. She rebuked the president’s description of impeachment as a lynching, and was quoted as saying the president made a “big mistake” asking China to investigate the Bidens.
Arizona Sen. Martha McSally, another vulnerable Republican facing reelection, was also omitted, though apparently for a different reason. While McSally signed onto the anti-impeachment resolution, she has frustrated Republican officials over her reluctance to exclusively use WinRed, a Trump-endorsed online fundraising tool. Party officials are trying to turn WinRed into a centralized hub of small-donor giving ahead of the 2020 election and used the platform to send out Trump’s appeal for the three senators.
With republican senators falling behind in their fundraising, the GOP is vulnerable to losing their hold on the Senate chamber.
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