Will impeachment even be a blip in 2022 battle for Senate control?

NRSC Chairman Rick Scott says midterms will focus on job creation

Former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment has dominated recent headlines, but neither party expects the votes cast Saturday by senators from battleground states to be a major factor in the fight for Senate control next year.

Seven Republican senators crossed party lines and joined all 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump for inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop Congress from confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. But that was 10 short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required by the Constitution. Forty-three Republicans voted to acquit Trump.

Two GOP senators in competitive races voted to acquit Trump. Just one Senate Republican up for reelection in 2022, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, voted to convict the former president. Two other Republicans in states with competitive Senate races who opted not to run for reelection, Pennsylvania’s Patrick J. Toomey and North Carolina’s Richard M. Burr, both also voted to convict.  Continue reading.