GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) says he feels alone in his party after being the sole Republican to vote in favor of both impeaching former President Trump and asking former Vice President Mike Pence (R) to remove him from office.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Kinzinger explained that his condemnations of the former president and his supporters had made the congressman a pariah in his own party.
“I’ve felt very isolated in my party,” Kinzinger told the newspaper. “Very isolated and very lonely.”
“I think we’re going to have an epic battle in the next six months for the definition of this party,” he added, referring to the battle between Republicans who have been divided over support of the former president amid his false claims that the election was “stolen” from him by President Biden and the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Kinzinger made headlines earlier this month when he joined with Democrats to call for Pence to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment, a process that would involve members of the president’s Cabinet declaring him unfit for office. The centrist Republican later said he was “in total peace” with his decision to vote for both that resolution and the Democrats’ article of impeachment.
“Do I worry about my political future? Not really, because honestly, I never got into this to build some political empire,” he told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. “I did it to do the right thing and I am in total peace today that my vote was the right thing, and I actually think history will judge it that way.”
The Illinois congressman, who won reelection in the fall after voting against Democrats’ previous efforts to impeach Trump last year, now faces a GOP primary challenger and resistance from state party officials who have remained loyal to the former president.
“There were a lot of people who were disappointed with Adam’s remarks,” Eli Nicolosi, chairman of the Winnebago County Republican Party in Illinois, told the Post. “I think Adam knows that his opinion is his opinion alone and it doesn’t necessarily represent other Republicans. Here in Winnebago County, there are a lot of people who aren’t happy with that.”