In the parking lot outside of Michigan Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin’s Monday “community conversation”, a group of Donald Trump supporters gathered around the Trump Unity Bridge, a traveling display of pro-Trump sentiment carried on a trailer which blared Jimmy Buffet’s Cheeseburger In Paradise.

Inside the meeting in the Detroit suburb of Rochester, the mood was tense as the vulnerable Democrat, battling for survival in a district that leans towards supporting the president, tackled the issue of her freshly announced support for impeaching Trump.

“Do you really want to blow up the world just to get rid of Donald Trump? Do you?” a Trump supporter yelled at attendees. Outside the meeting room, dozens of pro-Trump protesters held up signs that read: “Impeach Slotkin, Keep Trump.”

As Slotkin took the stage in front of about 400 people, Trump supporters repeatedly yelled over the freshman lawmaker as she spoke, while those backing Slotkin loudly cheered her.

Just hours earlier, Slotkin had announced via an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press that she would support two articles of impeachment over abuse of power and obstructing justice.

She’s one of a handful of vulnerable moderate Democrats who had headed into last weekend still undecided on the impeachment vote, which is expected to happen on Wednesday. Like most others in that group, she flipped a seat in 2018 in what is traditionally Republican territory.

Trump supporters at the town hall sought to drive home that point.

“I’m a voter, I’m from her district and she needs to hear us,” said Trump supporter Ron Stevers. He said Republicans are fired up to back the president, who is visiting Michigan on Wednesday night.

At the meeting, Slotkin acknowledged the political risk in her decision, but asked for Trump supporters to hear her out.

Protesters yell from the back of the room as congresswoman Elissa Slotkin holds a constituent community conversation in Rochester, Michigan. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP

“I know it’s controversial, but while we may not agree, I hope you believe me when I say that I made this decision out of duty to the country … because this is bigger than politics,” she said.

Slotkin in 2018 defeated incumbent Republican Mike Bishop in Michigan’s 8th congressional district by a 51-47 margin to take a seat that the GOP had held since 2000. Two years earlier, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the district – which largely covers a middle- and upper-middle-class region that stretches from Lansing to Detroit’s north-western suburbs – by a 50.6-43.9 margin.

Slotkin, a former CIA officer, is also one of a group of seven representatives with a military background who propelled the impeachment effort in September when they collectively came out in support of an inquiry. Some of those, including the Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens, who represents a neighboring and similar district, haven’t yet announced their position.

After taking the stage to a split of loud cheers and boos, Slotkin laid out how she arrived at the decision to back impeachment. She noted she initially held out on her decision to support opening an investigation because she wanted to let Americans decide Trump’s fate in the 2020 election.

But that changed, Slotkin said, when Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, “very specifically” admitted that they had asked a foreign power for help in investigating Joe Biden.

“As a CIA officer who has taken an oath to protect and defend the constitution, reaching out to a foreign power is something that is [an impeachable offense],” she said.

Slotkin noted that she served in the CIA under former Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, and said that they would “regularly wield their power” to achieve the nation’s national security goals.

However, she added, Trump “decided to do this for his own political gain and not the national security of the United States”.

Slotkin added she also supported impeaching Trump on obstruction of justice because the constitution gives the House power to investigate presidents, and Trump ordered officials not to cooperate.

“What if that becomes normal?” she asked. “What if next time we have a Democratic president asking China to carry out a cyber-attack? For me this is something that I cannot abide, that I cannot accept.”

After the meeting, Trump supporter Larry Parsons, who lives in nearby Hartland in Slotkin’s district, said he still wasn’t convinced by her impeachment case, and dismissed her arguments around obstruction of justice and abuse of power as “silly claims”.

“He didn’t ask a foreign power to investigate an opponent – that’s a false premise,” Parsons said. “He asked a foreign power to investigate corruption.”

Two different conservative organizations that are active statewide put together the protests. It’s unclear how many of those supporters live in Slotkin’s district, or if they would even vote for her 2020 if she opposed impeachment.

Slotkin told the media after the event that she understood that her position would anger Republicans, but added that part of the “responsibility of leadership” is making “the tough call, even when it’s not popular”.

“My hope is that people want elected representatives with integrity. My hope is that people say, “Huh, I don’t agree with everything that she’s done, but she makes calls based on what she believes is right,” Slotkin said.