Is Trump Getting Impeached? Questions Swirl Over POTUS' Future After Democrats Sweep Congress in Midterm Rout

Democrats secured full control of the United States Congress on Tuesday, 3 November, scoring a sweeping nationwide midterm victory that immediately ignited high-stakes deliberations over whether to impeach President Donald Trump for an unprecedented third time.

Following decisive Senate gains in traditional conservative bastions including Kansas and Texas alongside the ousting of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, projected incoming House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries maintained an ambiguous posture, refusing to rule impeachment in or out whilst pledging to prioritise the national affordability crisis.

While progressive lawmakers and senior figures such as Representative Adam Smith and Representative Jamie Raskin argue that the president has committed impeachable offences warranting formal constitutional sanction, moderate party figures, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, caution that falling short of the 67-vote Senate conviction threshold would render another trial politically counterproductive.

Trump, who repeatedly predicted on the campaign trail that a Democratic majority would attempt to remove him, insists he will aggressively exercise his veto power to block legislative overreach.

A Sweeping Repudiation at the Polls

Reuters called poll results a sweeping midterm repudiation of Trump as Democrats won all 20 closely watched House contests, and NBC News estimated they would hold about 248 House seats.

The Senate results were just as striking. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression, Democrats won a Senate seat in Texas and ousted Governor Greg Abbott, and Susan Collins lost her Maine seat after 30 years, according to Reuters.

Races in Mississippi, Michigan and Alaska had not been called by Wednesday morning, Reuters reported. The Associated Press has since called the Michigan race.

Exit polls by SSRS for a media consortium found that half of voters saw the midterms as an opportunity to rebuke the president, and 70 per cent wanted Congress to provide more checks and balances on him.

Trump accepted the outcome in a Fox News interview and congratulated Democrats, Reuters reported. On social media, he insisted he had not been on the ballot and would have won 'IN A LANDSLIDE' if he had.

Jeffries Keeps His Options Open

The new Congress is due to convene in January, when Democrats are expected to elect Jeffries Speaker.

On impeachment, he has stuck to a careful line. 'We haven't ruled anything in, and we haven't ruled anything out,' he said in August, adding that Democrats are focused on the affordability crisis, ABC News reported.

Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and the man who led Trump's second impeachment in 2021, says Trump has 'already committed numerous impeachable offences', Forbes reported. But he says Democrats are 'very sober' about the Senate's two-thirds threshold, and told Punchbowl News that impeachment is a tool to be used only if the benefits outweigh the costs.

Others are more eager. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she supports impeachment, and Ro Khanna argues it is not a mistake because 'it's about setting a standard', according to Forbes.

Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, has shifted too. In May, he declined to commit to impeachment, warning that past attempts had left their targets politically stronger.

In an interview a week before the election, published on 2 November, he told TIME he now supported impeaching Trump, calling him 'beyond dangerous'. 'I think we have to try, even if it doesn't succeed,' he said.

Senate Numbers Still Favour Trump

Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House, which Democrats will now hold. Removal from office is another matter: conviction in the Senate requires two-thirds of senators present, or 67 if all 100 vote.

Even with control of the Senate, Democrats would need a bloc of Republican senators to join them. Unless a substantial number of Republicans join Democrats, a third impeachment would be unlikely to lead to his removal, Forbes noted.

That reality has cooled some Democrats. Kamala Harris says impeachment 'is not a good idea' because 'the votes aren't there' in the Senate. Sherrod Brown, projected to win his Ohio Senate race, has said: 'I would not support an impeachment of Trump.' Senator Tammy Duckworth says Democrats should not impeach 'anybody' if they win Congress, Forbes reported.

Trump was impeached twice in his first term and acquitted by the Senate both times. Attempts in his second term have gone nowhere so far. In September, the House voted 232 to 147 to table an impeachment push by Representative Al Green over immigration enforcement, and 26 articles of impeachment introduced by Representative Steve Cohen in October have seen no action.

Trump Predicted This Fight

Trump has spent months warning his base that a Democratic House would come for him. 'If we don't win they'll end up impeaching me,' he told a rally in Texas, adding that he had become 'very good at beating them on impeachment', according to Forbes.

One Politico poll found substantial support for the idea. In October, it found 50 per cent of respondents said Democrats should impeach Trump if they regained Congress, while 32 per cent said they should not and 18 per cent were unsure. Some 54 per cent believed he had committed impeachable offences, a measure of opinion rather than a legal finding.

Impeachment is only one of the tools now in Democratic hands. Democratic-led committees are expected to take over investigative powers in January, and incoming chairs have promised investigations into the Trump family's business dealings, immigration enforcement and the handling of the Epstein files.

Trump, meanwhile, has signalled he will fight. He said he would work with Democrats on immigration but threatened to veto bills he considered 'insane', Reuters reported.

For now, any decision rests with a House majority that has yet to be sworn in, and with leaders such as Jeffries who will set its priorities.