Republicans in Congress return to Washington this week, and the far-right lawmaker who became Rep. Nearly blocked Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair

,

are urging him to vote on launching an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

But McCarthy’s slim majority is at risk in the 2024 elections

to move

Impeaching Biden, especially without compelling evidence that the president has committed major crimes or misdemeanors, will put the most vulnerable Republicans in a difficult position.

Impeachment is not popular

the 18th

districts that Biden won in 2020

But

currently held by House Republicans, according to an August poll commissioned by the Congressional Integrity Project, a Democratic-leaning nonprofit. Five of those vulnerable incumbents are John Duarte

from Modesto, Young Kim from Orange County, David Valadao from

Hanford

Michelle Steel of Seal Beach and

Mike Garcia

of Santa Clarita represent the districts of California.

Opinions on impeachment are largely divided along partisan lines: 84% of Trump voters in the poll said impeachment would be a serious effort to investigate; 92% of Biden voters said it would be a partisan stunt. But Trump voters are slightly more divided on this issue than Biden voters. In swing districts, that gap can make all the difference.

California’s five most vulnerable incumbent Republicans don’t seem to want to talk about impeachment. Their offices declined to comment or did not respond when The Times contacted them last week to ask about the topic.

But that silence won’t stop Democrats and their allies from pressing the issue. The Congressional Integrity Project launched a digital ad campaign against all 18 Republicans in Biden’s district on Tuesday.

‘After seven weeks at home, Rep. Mike Garcia returns to Washington’

An

advertisement says. “America is facing critical priorities: health care, the economy, the cost of living. But MAGA Republican leaders love it

[Kevin]

McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Green

e

want to focus on their false impeachment of President Biden even though they have no evidence. “Anything to protect Donald Trump.”

The call then urges viewers to call Garcia’s office to “tell him to focus on real priorities. Not fake impeachment stunts.”

The Constitution does not require this

That

a vote to open an impeachment inquiry, legal experts say. Previous probes started without one.

But even like McCarthy

keeps his promise

delay

S

a vote, the measure may not pass. Democrats will almost certainly be unanimously against it, and vulnerable Republicans may choose to vote against it. A handful of dissenters could destroy this effort. Even some far-right lawmakers disagree with the research, with one member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus calling the push absurd.”

The impeachment proceedings also come at a precarious time: The federal government will be shut down by the end of the month unless both chambers can agree on legislation to send to the White House. McCarthy has proposed a measure to extend the deadline and give lawmakers more time to negotiate as they are not yet close to an agreement.

But even if McCarthy can agree to a compromise with the Senate majority leader

Chuck Charles

E. Schumer from New York, he will need almost his entire party to be on board.

Some far-right lawmakers have threatened to withhold their votes on the spending and others have threatened to remove McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) from the presidency if he doesn’t take serious action.

S

direction

S

impeachment.

The exact purpose of a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden remains unclear. While many lawmakers have highlighted the legal troubles of Biden’s son Hunter, others have sought to draw attention to his handling of the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan and pointed to unsubstantiated allegations of malfeasance while he was vice president.

The White House and its allies have repeatedly condemned Republicans’ impeachment efforts, describing them as partisan and baseless. “Republicans are engaged in a purely political exercise,” Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, told The Times. “They are trying to impeach the president without a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing.”

If Republicans go the route of impeachment, they “better have hard and convincing evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research, told The Times.

“Otherwise it just seems like a publicity stunt,” he said. An impeachment inquiry into a publicity stunt,

he added

would not sit well with swing voters.