US Republican party in crisis as Donald Trump faces impeachment

After riots at the US Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, the Republican Party is facing defections from two camps of voters it can’t afford to reduce: those declaring Mr Trump and his allies went too much in contesting the election of Democrat Joe Biden - and those saying they didn’t go considerably enough, according to latest polling and interviews with two dozen voters.

Paul Foster - a 65-year-old house painter in Ellsworth, Maine - is furious at party leaders to get refusing to rear the president’s statements that the election was stolen with millions of fraudulent votes. “The party will probably be totally damaged” if it abandons Mr Trump, Foster says, predicting President Trump's loyalists will spin off right into a new third party.

Marc Cupelo - a good retired business consultant in Syracuse, New York - couldn’t feel more differently. A lifelong Republican, he regretted voting for Mr Trump as he watched the president’s backers storm the Capitol last Wednesday, inspired by Mr Trump’s fiery rhetoric and fake election-fraud claims. Nowadays he wants the party to banish Mr Trump and carve out a less-divisive future, free from the “twisted ideals” held by some of his supporters.

“I just wish he'd run away along with his tail between his hip and legs,” Mr Cupelo says.

The opposing views of Mr Cupelo and Mr Foster capture the crucible where Republican leaders end up. With Democrat Joe Biden nowadays set to take business office on January 20, the continuing future of the so-called Grand Old Party, or GOP, is normally wracked by uncertainty and intra-party division not seen because the aftermath of the Watergate scandal that drove President Richard Nixon from the White House almost a half century before.

And the choice confronting party leaders as they ponder a renewed impeachment work - whether to keep backing Mr Trump or get him a pariah - will almost certainly cost the get together voters it requires to get future elections, Republican get together officials and strategists state.

Though Republicans have finally lost control of the White House and both houses of Congress in just 4 years, Mr Trump’s base remains a powerful electoral force in the party. That bottom helped him capture considerably more voters - some 74 million - than any Republican in history. Almost all his supporters, including 70% of Republicans, remain loyal, according to brand-new Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted days after previous week’s riot at the Capitol, and several activists say they’re ready to abandon the GOP for any perceived slight against their leader.

Yet Mr Trump’s capability to attract support is surpassed only by his ability to drive it apart: Mr Biden won even more voters than any presidential candidate in history, capturing a lot more than 81 million votes, including the almost all self-described independents and a little but great number of disaffected Republicans, according to exit polls by Edison Exploration. A lot of those voters - and extra repelled by the Capitol violence - are adamant that they will never support a celebration that continues to be tethered to Mr Trump.

The problem revolves around a central question, says longtime Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak: “We can't win without Trump's base; the problem is, can we hold onto Trump's basic without Trump?"

The loss of support - from both Republicans who love Mr Trump and those who despise him - represents a crisis for a party already struggling to cobble together an absolute national coalition.

Support among Republicans appears to be eroding, and the trend has got accelerated since last week’s riot in the Capitol and amid a fresh impeachment effort - the next of his term - accusing him of inciting the mob violence. The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach Mr Trump, setting the level for a trial in the Senate, quite possibly after he leaves office. If he had been convicted, possibly after stepping down, it’s feasible senators could vote to bar him forever from holding federal business office.

Mr Trump's support among self-identified Republicans fell to 70 % in the brand new Reuters/Ipsos polling, conducted January 8-12 in the wake of the Capitol riot, down from a peak of 88 % in mid-August. That is the lowest degree of his presidency. His acceptance also sank to only 34 % among all People in america, the cheapest since December 2017, after he signaled support for far-right extremists at a deadly rally in Virginia.

The Capitol riot was the previous straw for Jack Drago, 80, a retired service engineer for Chrysler who lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

Mr Drago voted for Mr Trump because he disliked Mr Biden’s support of abortion rights and anxious that the Democratic Party’s progressive wing would push the united states towards big-government “socialism.” But he’s been “appalled” by Mr Trump’s conduct and polarising dialect since the election and holds him responsible for the Capitol strike, referring to the Mr Trump's backers who carried it out as “clowns” and “radicals.”

“If the Republicans thought to Trump: ‘We’ll impeach you,’ they’d hit a home go,” Mr Drago says.

Ten Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday.

Loyalists stand with Trump

For now, however, Republican voters like Mr Drago remain more the exception compared to the rule.

In the days before the Capitol riot, Reuters/Ipsos polling demonstrated that Mr Trump’s repeated assertions of election fraud were catching on: About 65 % of Republicans felt Mr Biden’s election victory was because of unlawful votes and election-rigging. That was up from 59 % who said therefore in a November 13-17 poll shortly after the election.