WASHINGTON—House Democrats are setting their political sights on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pushing for his removal as the first spoils from anticipated wins in the midterm election.

House Democratic Party leaders and candidates in competitive districts have avoided committing to a third impeachment of President Trump if they flip the GOP-led chamber, seeing it as potentially counterproductive. But lawmakers are ready to go after Hegseth as soon as they can, with a vote likely next month while Republicans are still in charge and another crack at it next year—when Democrats hope they are running the chamber.

“One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) said at a rally in Pennsylvania this month, to cheers from the crowd.

Democrats have echoed that line at rallies, in public statements and on cable news. On CNN, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) said Hegseth is “incompetent and, frankly, corrupt.”Rep. Jared Huffman (D., Calif.) called the secretary an “unhinged fanatic who should be impeached and removed from office.”

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said that Hegseth has been a transformative leader and that “the entire Department is unified behind the Secretary’s vision.”She said the department “is solely focused on peace through strength and ensuring our warfighters have everything they need to be successful.”“Nobody lifts an eyebrow” about talk of impeaching a cabinet member, said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who managed Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021. Removing an administration official doesn’t raise the same questions about whether lawmakers are “undoing a presidential election or undermining the will of the people,” he said.

If the House votes to impeach, the matter would then move to the Senate, where a two-thirds supermajority is required to convict—and is seen as very unlikely. The only time the House has impeached a war secretary was William Belknap in 1876, who resigned minutes before the vote and was later acquitted by the Senate.

Hegseth has become a controversial figure in Washington. Lawmakers from both parties objected to his proposal to livestream the execution by firing squad of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. Trump ultimately canceled the plan. During Hegseth’s confirmation process last year, lawmakers on both sides questioned his candidacy, pointing to accusations of excessive drinking and a 2017 sexual-assault allegation, which he denies.

Since taking office, Hegseth has ousted senior officials, criticized diversity initiatives, urged that rules for combat should be relaxed and pushed for mandatory testosterone testing. This year, he has been a public face for the Iran war as head of the Defense Department, which Trump has dubbed the Department of War.

Democrats argue Hegseth has already committed impeachable offenses, and a House majority would give them the votes and subpoena power to dig further. In January, the party can start investigations, release findings and weigh which action—including calling for resignation or impeachment—is the right course. If they do move ahead with impeachment, it would be almost certain to pass a Democratic-led House.

An impeachment vote is expected before the current Congress ends, but is more difficult to pass in a Republican majority, where most GOP lawmakers defend him.

In September, Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), a longtime critic of U.S. interventions overseas, read impeachment articles against Hegseth on the House floor and moved to force a vote. But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) then sent lawmakers home, putting it off until after the midterms. Massie said he intends to force an impeachment vote shortly after the House returns to session on Nov. 9, the week after the elections.

“I saw no other avenue to stop them from waging illegal war,” Massie said in an interview the day he read out the articles.

Impeachment requires a simple majority in the House, where Republicans currently have a 219-214 advantage, including an independent who caucuses with them. If all House Democrats back the effort, Massie would need at least two more Republicans to join him. None so far have said they would vote to impeach, and Massie indicated he is counting on some lawmakers who lose their re-election bids to switch sides.

Those votes haven’t materialized yet. Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.), who lost her bid for governor this year and is leaving Congress, said she won’t vote to impeach Hegseth in November. The congresswoman was one of seven Republicans who voted last month to call for an end to the Iran war, but she said Hegseth shouldn’t be blamed for continuing hostilities.

Other Republicans including Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Don Bacon of Nebraska and Warren Davidson of Ohio have also voiced opposition to impeachment, according to the lawmakers and people familiar with their thinking. All have criticized aspects of the war effort or crossed party lines on other Massie resolutions.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D., Va.), the top Democrat on the Oversight subcommittee on military and foreign affairs, said he believes there are already enough votes in the House to impeach Hegseth, due to potential Republican defections in November. In any case, he said, “it makes sense to delve into all the details of all his issues in the new Congress.”He said a 2025 Hegseth incident dubbed “Signalgate” is “impeachable in and of itself.”

That March, Hegseth had posted launch times and aircraft for strikes in a chat that mistakenly included a journalist. The Pentagon’s inspector general found that he broke department rules by using his personal phone, and that the messages, sent hours before the strikes, risked harm to U.S. military personnel. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the inspector general review exonerated Hegseth.