President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign believes the ongoing fight over impeachment will rally the party’s base and make the difference in key races next year.

Members of the Trump campaign’s communications team told MLive that House Democrats only flipped Republican seats in 2018 because 8.8 million people who voted for Trump in 2016 stayed home during the midterm elections. Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said House Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry will bolster Trump’s prospects of reelection and GOP candidates’ chances of victory down the ballot.

“They are 2020 Trump voters again, they just sat out the midterm elections,” Murtaugh said Tuesday. “We are quite confident that those voters will be back again in 2020 when the same House members will be back on the ballot again.”

Tom Shields, senior advisor and founder of Marketing Resource Group, said it’s not clear whether impeachment will drive turnout in 2020. GOP candidates in other races can take solace in Trump’s base remaining strongly behind him, Shields said, but voter enthusiasm also relies on who Democrats choose to be their presidential nominee.

“Who knows? It’s way too early at this point in time,” Shields said. “They don’t know where this impeachment thing is going to go. Is it going to turn against Trump or turn against Congress, there’s no way to know."

Trump picked up 2.2 million votes to win Michigan by 0.3% in 2016, the narrowest margin of victory in the state’s presidential election history. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette picked up 1.8 million voters two years later and lost to Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.

Overall turnout last year was the highest in a midterm election cycle since 1962, and it paid off big for blue candidates. Democrats made gains in 93% of Michigan cities and townships compared to the vote in the 2016 presidential election, according to an MLive analysis of 2018 voting data.

GOP candidates lost races for all statewide offices, control of the 8th and 11th House districts and 10 seats in the Michigan Legislature. U.S. Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, and Haley Stevens, D-Rochester Hills, flipped House districts that Trump and Republicans won by comfortable margins in 2016.

Fewer people vote in midterms compared to presidential election years. The number of Michigan votes cast in 2018 declined by 11%.

Turnout in the 8th and 11th districts was higher than the state average, but votes for Republican candidates were down more than 21% from 2016. Democrats attribute their wins in 2018 to their ability to flip white suburban voters who previously supported Republicans.

Murtaugh said the Trump campaign has access to the RNC’s detailed voter file, a database used to target potential supporters and organize get out the vote efforts. Though he didn’t share internal polling, Murtaugh told reporters Tuesday he’s confident that Trump supporters are waiting in the wings for 2020.

Slotkin and Stevens came out in support of the impeachment inquiry last month and have been heavily targeted by Republicans who say they abandoned their status as moderates. The Republican National Committee organized impeachment protests in Slotkin’s and Stevens’ districts and purchased ads against them, along with other House Democrats in districts Trump won.

Rick Gorka, director of communications for Trump Victory, said Democrats are acknowledging the impeachment inquiry is unpopular by not holding a formal vote. Republicans are demanding the House hold a vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry, though the Constitution does not require it.

Gorka said Democrats are shielding vulnerable members from taking an official position on impeachment.

Though Slotkin and Stevens support the inquiry, they haven’t committed to impeaching the president. Stevens asked constituents to tell her whether they support the inquiry in a Wednesday email.

Recent MRG polling shows Michigan voters are split on the impeachment inquiry. A survey of 600 likely Michigan voters by the Lansing-based organization, found 49% support the impeachment inquiry while 45% oppose it.

The results diverged nearly evenly among partisan lines, with nearly all Republicans opposing an inquiry, but the poll found 50% of independent voters support the inquiry.

“I think impeachment is the issue of the day that people can gather around, either to rally to support him or rally to take him out of office,” Shields said. “At this point in time it seems like the two sides are going to split no matter what it has to do with Trump. He’s a polarizing figure.”

The impeachment battle has benefitted Republican fundraising for 2020 battlegrounds.

Trump’s campaign and the RNC raised $15 million in small-dollar donations in the 72 hours after Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry. The NRCC experienced a 403% spike in online donations the week after the impeachment announcement.

Murtaugh said the figures demonstrate a swell of support for the president.

“It is the grassroots enthusiasm, the indignance that a lot the president’s supporters feel about how they think that their vote is being ignored by Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats in Congress and that they’re trying to use partisan excuses to unseat and remove a duly and legitimately elected president,” Murtaugh said. “Americans don’t like sore losers ... I think that’s what we’re feeling both in fundraising and from the grassroots energy that we see at the local level, and that we see in these rallies that the president is holding."