House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ready for the House to open an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump — but outside Washington, there’s creeping anxiety throughout the party it might only help the president clinch a second term.

More than a dozen Democratic Party officials and strategists told POLITICO this week that the calculation against impeachment that Pelosi once held — that it’s unpopular and plays into Trump’s hands in the election — remains just as valid now.

“Of course, I want impeachment from a moral perspective,” said Michael Ceraso, a former New Hampshire director for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. "But from a political perspective, I don’t want to spend a year talking about how Democrats tried to impeach him and couldn’t pull it off.”

Instead of health care and kitchen-table economics — the issues the party ran on in last year’s blue-wave election — the campaign will inevitably be consumed by a doomed effort to boot Trump from office, skeptics say. All when Trump will be on the ballot in a matter of months, anyway.

“The Democrats become single-issue candidates, which weakens them," Ceraso said, adding that the proceedings will only solidify Trump's base.

For months, the Democratic presidential hopefuls have labored to frame 2020 not only as a referendum on an unpopular president, but as a chance to deliver on Democratic priorities ranging from health care and climate change to gun control and criminal justice reform. The investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia — the focus of previous impeachment discussions — barely registered in the campaign after the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The uneasiness about impeachment seems to reflect a minority view within the party’s political and professional classes. Broadly, Democrats see the Ukraine scandal as more straightforward — and more persuasive — than the Byzantine Russia investigation. Many Democrats who’ve balked at impeachment in the past are now on board.

The countervailing opinions within the party come at a sensitive time for Democrats. The primary has entered a critical five-month run-up to the start of voting, with candidates fine-tuning their messages to voters. An impeachment push in Washington threatens to upend months of planning and strategizing, denying oxygen to much of the field and throwing a spotlight on a part of the Democratic front-runner’s past that he’s been striving to keep away from the campaign.

Democrats can only guess — or dread — where it will all end up.

One strategist working for a Democratic presidential candidate said Tuesday that if the evidence of wrongdoing against Trump proves even slightly less overwhelming than assumed, the result could be a “Mueller redux.”

Impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton, another Democratic strategist said, “did wonders for [his] approval rating. … You know what Omar [Little] used to say on 'The Wire'? ‘If you come at the king, you best not miss.'" Even if Trump were impeached, the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to convict him.

Biden said Tuesday that Congress has “no choice but to initiate impeachment” if Trump doesn’t comply with ongoing investigations. And several other Democrats have heightened their own calls for impeachment.

But for a presidential candidate, calling for impeachment is one thing. Having proceedings opened is another, and it has the potential to reshape the entire 2020 campaign.

One Democratic strategist familiar with multiple presidential campaigns in Iowa said the party’s eventual nominee would be better served if House Democrats decline to open proceedings, even as candidates publicly urge them to. He reacted with alarm as Pelosi signaled Monday that she had become more open to the possibility of impeachment.

“She needs to take one for the team and say, ‘Nope, we’re not doing it,’” the strategist said, before Pelosi greenlighted an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday.

Another Democratic strategist with ties to the national party agreed. Holding the earlier Democratic line — with Democratic presidential candidates calling for impeachment and Pelosi declining to go there — would also help vulnerable Democratic House members with their reelection bids.

“I think that works well for both Congress and the candidate because then [House members] can say they stand against the nominee,” the strategist said.

The uneasiness surrounding impeachment in Democratic Party circles was laid bare in Iowa this week, as news of the Ukraine scandal unfolded amid the Polk County Steak Fry, a major event on the Democratic primary calendar.

Biden moved to confront Trump while at the event, saying the allegations against the president appear “to be an overwhelming abuse of power.” Elizabeth Warren told reporters that Trump has demonstrated “he thinks it's pretty clear he doesn't have to follow the law, and in fact, can continue to commit high crimes and misdemeanors.” Cory Booker called Trump’s behavior “a betrayal of our nation.”

And the caucusgoers in attendance?

“I talked to a lot of people, and it didn’t come up once, not at all,” said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of Iowa's Polk County Democrats. “I’m sure it really energizes Twitter, but Twitter doesn’t vote.”

In preparation for the 2020 presidential election, he said, “I don’t know that Ukraine matters that much either way. … In the end, we’re running out of months now. We’re almost a year out from the election.”

“The bread-and-butter issues are more important now than ever,” Bagniewski added. “We all need to start deciding what we want to be spending our time on.”

“It’s a national spectacle that will make people defend the presidency or tune out, which is worse,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist based in New York. “The incessant banging about it doesn’t help. Stick with issues that work.”

Bob Mulholland, a Democratic National Committee member from California, put it this way: “Absent Trump being caught in a trunk with a young boy, impeachment is a political disaster for us Democrats.”

Still, numerous Democrats believe impeachment proceedings against Trump could bloody him and hurt Republicans running in down-ticket races. Failing to pursue impeachment could potentially depress Democratic turnout. One Democratic strategist said he was waiting for better polling on Ukraine.

Karen Hicks, a Democratic strategist in New Hampshire, said that politically, “It’s risky either way.”

“I think people should sort of do their jobs and hope that we can all walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said.

“Part of the problem is that everybody’s turned into a pundit, where people are not representing what they think, but they’re representing what they think the voters will think. So, it all becomes a complicated bank shot,” Hicks said. “What we need is for everybody to fulfill their role."