In SC – where voters went Trump in 2016 – Steyer rallies support behind impeachment
The same night GOP candidates for S.C. governor sought to draw themselves closer to President Donald Trump, a California megadonor in Columbia on Wednesday tried to make a case for why the former New York real estate mogul should be pulled from the White House.
"We know that impeaching the president of the United States is a huge task," said Tom Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund manager and liberal activist. "It's extremely serious, and we take it with all due seriousness."
In his first visit to Columbia on Wednesday, Steyer — who this year launched a multistate "grassroots" tour urging voters to sign onto his "Need to Impeach" Trump campaign — told roughly 150 people that impeaching Trump is not about policy.
"Impeachment is for a president who breaks the law, is reckless and does not respect the Constitution of the American people," he said.
However, Steyer's visit to South Carolina was hardly a blip on the radar for the S.C. Republican Party.
Wednesday, all five Republican candidates for governor — including Gov. Henry McMaster, who Trump has endorsed for S.C. governor — were at Clemson University trying to outshine one another in a televised debate.
"This guy (Steyer) is a bad penny that keeps turning up state after state," said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick. "If Democrats think it's going to sell, they're digging their own grave."
Trump's approval in South Carolina has continued to rise since he won the presidency in 2016.
An April poll found 46 percent of South Carolinians approve of Trump's job performance, up from 42 percent in February.
In 2016, Trump won South Carolina with 55 percent of the vote.
But those numbers did not stop South Carolinians on Wednesday from saying it is time to remove Trump from office.
“I don't sit here because the president is Republican," said S.C. House Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland. "I am surrounded in the State House by many honorable Republicans. … As I watch the news and read tweets, what I see is someone who doesn't love the country but only loves themselves.”
This story was originally published May 23, 2018 at 8:21 PM with the headline "In SC – where voters went Trump in 2016 – Steyer rallies support behind impeachment."