Ask Us Anything
Voter suppression, impeachment, and leadership
On the second and fourth Sunday of every month, we’re answering questions we get from paid subscribers. Here is a sample of what’s on your mind this week:
I get a lot of email messages about work being done on the front end of voter suppression, such as petitioning our Senators and Representatives to vote against the Save Act. What is happening with voter suppression on the other end with individuals challenging the ballots of large numbers of voters in their state? The state of Georgia comes to mind, among others, with this tactic having a significant effect on elections by disqualifying ballots of voters who were unaware that their right to vote had been challenged.
(Chris) I have good news for you on this front! First, newfound Democratic dominance among high propensity voters has actually made it much harder, if not impossible, to suppress the Democratic vote. Primarily because Democrats now dominate among better educated Americans, ongoing Republican attempts to reduce the size of the electorate through voter ID laws, voter roll purges, or the restriction of mail-in and early voting, actually hurt Republicans more now than they hurt Democrats.
Other tactics you mention, such as putting poll monitors in heavily African-American and Democratic precincts, can also be countered. First, not a lot of Republicans actually want to go into such precincts and volunteer as poll monitors, for all of the reasons you might suspect. Second, by contrast, there are far more Democratic-aligned volunteers, organized by well funded pro-democracy advocacy groups, who are willing to go into such precincts to make sure that all potential voters are able to legally exercise their right to vote.
In short, I believe that through a combination of strong on-the-ground organizing and the new composition of the two major party coalitions, we can effectively stop Republican voter suppression in its tracks.
Is there any hope that Republican members of Congress will realize they are more vulnerable staying with Trump than opposing his destructive policies? I’d prefer they would be motivated by ethics and the preservation of democracy but if the motivation is self-interest, so be it.
(Matt) For Republicans in safe states and districts—which is to say most Republicans—Trump’s public support will need to collapse before they feel threatened. Unless and until the Republican base deserts Trump in larger numbers than we’re seeing, the vulnerability you’re looking for won’t be there. Now this could happen at some point, especially because Trump seems determined to keep going until he loses the confidence of the entire country. The conditions just aren’t right for it yet.
But that kind of wholesale collapse doesn’t need to happen for us to see Congress stand up to Trump, because Republican margins in the House are so narrow that it would only take a few members in competitive districts to turn on the administration and create a sea change in how the legislature is acting. I suspect many of these members are aware of the general election risks they are assuming by supporting the administration’s destructive policies, but they are also aware of the risks of defecting, and so far defection has felt like the riskier move to them because they fear it could invite anything from a well-financed primary challenger to bodily harm. This could change as Trump’s popularity continues to plummet and he looks more comically inept than frightening. But for now, self-preservation is winning out. As Lisa Murkowski said recently, they are scared.
How many House or Senate members must we elect if we want to succeed in impeaching Trump? And if successful what do we do about Vance?
(Matt) To impeach, we just need a simple majority of the House. That’s extremely attainable in the midterm elections next year. But political circumstances would have to be dire for Republicans to get a conviction in the Senate. It takes two-thirds of the Senate to convict and it’s going to be a big lift just to get Democrats to a simple Senate majority in the midterms. That means any conviction would have to be bipartisan, and you couldn’t get enough Republicans to convict Trump weeks after his mob tried to have them killed in 2021.
As much as we all want this nightmare to end, the impeachment mechanism is too partisan to be effective. But there is still value in holding a trial, presenting the evidence of this president’s criminality to the American public, and forcing Republicans to go on record supporting it by refusing to convict. And if the stars were to align somehow and enough Republicans found their way to a conviction, then we get Vance. There’s nothing we can do about that.
Our precious planet is the container for the countless issues being contested in court, and in the court of public opinion. And yet without a planet to live on, none of that really matters. So why are lawmakers talking about anything but climate change and not coming together to see what can be done to mitigate further damage to our planet?
(Chris): Elected officials can never talk about only one issue. Single-issue advocates can, but elected officials need to be responsive to the myriad concerns of their constituents or they will not be elected officials for long. According to a pre-election poll from Gallup, climate change ranked near the very bottom—21st out of 22 issues in terms of importance to voters. A February 2025 poll from Pew found something similar, with climate change coming in 17th out of 20 issues they surveyed. Economic issues almost always tend to be much higher on the minds of voters, which is why you hear politicians talk about economic issues more than anything else.
The Supreme Court canceled Roe v. Wade, which the Court had approved decades earlier. Couldn’t the Court also cancel Trump’s immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while he is in office?
(Matt) Well they could, but they won’t. At least this court won’t. They’re invested in expanding the authority of the executive, or at least the authority of this executive. But that doesn’t preclude a future court from re-establishing the constitutional balance of power that was upended by last year’s immunity decision. Courts typically exercise caution before reversing precedent, especially courts that are supposed to be conservative. However, future courts can overturn bad decisions from previous courts once the balance of power shifts, and the Roberts Court will leave behind a long legacy of bad decisions.
I receive 20-30 texts and/or emails per day asking for donations. I can fragment my meager donations as I do now, but I feel like we need a leader in this fight to get behind. When Kamala was running, it was an easy choice to make. Now, I have no idea how to focus my “beam” of energy to make it the most useful. Protests, community events, etc. make sense. And I do participate. But as to the big picture, we need a leader that we can get behind. The next election is too far off. It needs to happen now.
(Chris) You may find this answer disappointing, but it is simply too early to early to rally behind a single leader. That simply is not going to happen until the Democratic presidential primary is over in early or mid-2028. The primary process is the only democratic means for choosing a new leader for the Democratic coalition. Any other means of trying to choose a leader would not be democratic, and as such would not be broadly accepted by Democratic voters.
After a party loses a presidential election, that party is inevitably thrown into a state of leaderlessness. In order for that to change, new faces, new strategies, and new messages have to be debated, tested, and eventually voted on during the primaries. Even Donald Trump had to go out and win the 2024 Republican primary in order to gain the mantle of Republican Party leader. Hillary Clinton had to do the same in 2016, just as Barack Obama did in 2008, John Kerry did in 2004, Al Gore and George W. Bush did in 2000, etc. There is no shortcut to that process.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate!