WASHINGTON — Two Democrats broke with their party and voted against impeaching President Donald Trump Wednesday night.

Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey were the only Democrats who opposed impeaching the president. But Van Drew, the party’s most vocal impeachment critic, plans to leave the Democratic Party in the coming days and become a Republican, after Trump made an appeal to him in a meeting last week.

Another Democrat, Maine Rep. Jared Golden, voted yes on impeaching Trump for abuse of power, but voted no on impeaching him for obstruction of Congress. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, voted present on both articles.

Van Drew and Peterson were the only Democrats to break with their party on an October vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry. Peterson said in the days leading up to the vote that he would likely oppose the articles of impeachment as well, while Van Drew planned to leave the party.

Peterson said he, too, was approached about switching parties by “the highest levels of the Republican party” in the lead-up to the impeachment vote, but decided against it. Peterson, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, was first elected in 1991. He, unlike most of his colleagues, supports giving Trump money to build a wall on the Southern border and is staunchly anti-abortion. He maintains an A rating from the National Rifle Association and beat his Republican opponent by about four points in 2018.



Van Drew told reporters after Wednesday night's vote that he had attended Republicans' caucus meeting that morning, but that he is currently still a Democrat. He said he would update reporters in the next few days about the party-switch. Van Drew added that Republican members have been “very nice” and "very supportive." He stood with other Republicans during House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's speech against impeachment.

"This isn’t about liking or not liking Donald Trump,” Van Drew told reporters immediately after the vote. "This is about the proper and appropriate use of one of the most serious actions you can take in the United States of America, other than declaring war.

“And I think it’s going to cause harm in our country I believe that is going to cause a great deal of animosity between people and friction. ... I felt that it was appropriate to go for it so I sat with my Republican friends on this issue.”



A number of Van Drew’s staff resigned Sunday, writing in a letter that his “decision to join the ranks of the Republican party led by Donald Trump does not align with the values we brought to this job when we joined his office.”



Asked what his constituents have been telling him, Van Drew said that "some people were obviously very very much against" impeachment, while others were in favored it. “We get thousands of phone calls, emails, etcetera, that’s normal.”



Van Drew has voted almost entirely with Democrats since becoming a member of Congress in January and did not say he’d make major changed in his voting patterns. “If it’s something that I think is good, I’m going to vote for and if, it’s something that I don’t think is this good, then I won’t," he said.

