ROCHESTER, Mich. — After announcing in an op-ed in her local paper that she will vote to impeach President Donald Trump, Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin was met with a mix of cheers and boos at a town hall meeting at Oakland University on Monday morning.

She started talking about “the basic facts” — that Trump asked the president of a foreign country to investigate a political rival — and chants broke out: “Hey ho, hey ho, Elissa Slotkin’s got to go.”

One of the freshmen who helped Democrats win a historic House victory in 2018, Slotkin flipped a longtime GOP district that Trump carried by 7 points in 2016. Her decision to vote for impeachment raises questions about whether she and Democrats like her in Trump districts will face political backlash in 2020.

“This was an issue of principle,” Slotkin told the crowd. “This was an issue in my bones.”

Reaching a decision

Slotkin was one of seven so-called national security freshmen whose September Washington Post op-ed column calling for an impeachment inquiry opened the floodgates of Democratic support. Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a probe shortly thereafter.