House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's primary responsibility is to represent the interests of his voters, but he only cares about what one person thinks — Adam Schiff.

As one of the House’s impeachment managers, Schiff has spent the past two days establishing the Democrats’ opening argument for why President Trump should be removed from office. He accused Trump of attempting to “use the powers of the presidency to cheat in an election” and threatened that if not “remedied by his conviction in the Senate,” Trump’s presidency would “permanently alter the balance of power among the branches of government.”

Then, Schiff dropped a doozy: “For precisely this reason,” he announced, “the president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”

Schiff knows that the Senate will almost certainly vote to acquit Trump next week and that his impeachment efforts will have been for naught. So, he’s laying the groundwork for the Democrats’ next conspiracy theory: that President Trump rigged the 2020 election.

This reveals a few things: First, it’s clear Schiff learned nothing from the debunked Russia collusion theory. Special counsel Robert Mueller investigated and dismissed the Democrats’ allegations that Trump worked hand in hand with Russia to steal the White House in 2016, but Schiff can’t seem to let it go, and neither can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Next, Schiff appears to have very little confidence in his own party and its ability to run an effective campaign against Trump in November because he’s already discrediting the results of the 2020 election based on the premise that Trump will win. If Schiff believed strongly that the Democratic candidate could beat Trump, why would he be preemptively questioning the legitimacy of the election on the Senate floor?

For as little trust as Schiff might have in his own party, he trusts the public even less. The idea that voters cannot accurately determine for themselves in November whether Trump deserves to remain in office is insulting and even undemocratic. Trump won in 2016 because the voters made an honest choice — a choice that is now being discounted by Democratic politicians unwilling to learn from their mistakes.

And they might just elect him again in November — at least, that’s what Schiff seems afraid of.