Red-state Dems worried broadening impeachment push will kill hopes of retaking Senate in 2020

Some red-state Senate Democrats are fretting that the ongoing House impeachment inquiry could expand uncontrollably and become a “kitchen sink” of complaints about President Trump, Fox News has learned.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Montana Sen. Jon Tester specifically expressed concerns about a broadening impeachment push severely damaging Democrats' chances to win back a Senate majority next year, sources told Fox News.

The senators have told Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that leadership cannot allow liberal Democrats to push for the inquiry to include allegations about Trump illegally using his office to enrich himself or relitigate findings from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling in 2016.

Instead, Manchin and Tester said, the inquiry should stay very narrowly focused on Ukraine. Last month, a whistleblower complaint was released alleging Trump, holding back on Ukraine military aid, pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to look into former Vice President Joe Biden's push to oust a top prosecutor there. This, while his son Hunter Biden sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump and the White House have denied doing anything wrong in the call.

A former senior party aide told Fox News: “If Democrats lose focus on the charges of foreign corruption and election interference, so will voters. Democrats need to stay laser-focused on one issue and not allow their base to drag them in 20 different directions. They saw this playbook work in 2018 where they focused on health care. Hopefully, they will run the same play with impeachment.”

Immediately after Democrats launched their formal impeachment inquiry last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., openly declared that Ukraine was just one of many reasons to begin proceedings against the president.

“What is going on is that the president has committed several impeachable offenses. He, himself, what he has admitted to, is already impeachable, regardless of future developments,” Ocasio-Cortez said, referencing potential Emoluments Clause violations.