Did 18 Republican senators join Democrats to impeach Trump?

1. What counts as “joining Democrats to impeach/convict”? — impeachment in the House vs. conviction in the Senate

The distinction matters: the House of Representatives votes to impeach (bring articles of impeachment), while the Senate holds the trial and votes to convict; in the Jan. 2021 episode the House impeached Trump on a single article of “incitement of insurrection,” and that House vote was carried with 10 House Republicans joining Democrats (final House tally reported as 232–197) ^{[2] [3]}. The Senate vote to convict requires a two‑thirds majority; that is why reporting often notes how many Republican senators would have had to cross party lines to reach conviction ^{[2] [4]}.

2. What the Senate actually did: seven GOP senators voted to convict in the second trial

When the Senate trial concluded, seven Republican senators voted to convict Donald Trump, joining all 50 Democrats and the two independents; that bipartisan group fell short of the constitutional two‑thirds threshold — the conviction vote count and the number of GOP crossovers are consistently reported as seven Republicans ^{[1] [5] [4]}. One source summarizes the seven GOP names and the context of the vote; official roll‑call records are archived by the Senate ^{[1] [6]}.

3. Why the “17” and where 18 might come from — thresholds and confusion

Some reporting explains that Democrats would need 17 Republican senators to flip in a 100‑member Senate to reach the two‑thirds threshold required for conviction; that arithmetic (50 Democrats + 17 GOP = 67) is often cited, and can be misremembered or conflated with actual votes ^{[4] [2]}. The number 18 does not appear in the provided sources as an accurate count of Republicans who joined Democrats on either the House impeachment or the Senate conviction vote; if someone is asserting 18 GOP senators crossed, that claim contradicts the contemporaneous counts in the sources provided ^{[1] [5]}.

4. Where the factual record comes from and how reliable it is

The count of seven GOP senators who voted to convict is reported across multiple national outlets and compiled in Senate roll‑call records ^{[1] [5] [6]}, and the House vote count and the list of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach are similarly available in mainstream coverage ^{[2] [3]}. Reporting after the votes also documented political repercussions for the Republicans who broke with the party, underscoring the consistency of the contemporary record ^{[7] [8]}.

5. Alternative explanations for the “18” figure and limits of the provided reporting

Possible reasons the number 18 circulates include conflation between the 17‑vote threshold needed in the Senate, addition of House and Senate Republicans into a single total, or later/alternate political developments not captured in these sources; none of the supplied articles or roll calls support an actual count of 18 Republican senators voting with Democrats in either chamber on impeachment/conviction ^{[4] [2]}. If the 18‑figure refers to a different action, later date, or informal declarations rather than the formal Senate roll call, that cannot be confirmed or disproved from the sources provided — the reporting here covers the Jan.–Feb. 2021 impeachment events and subsequent analysis ^{[1] [5] [2]}.

6. Bottom line

Careful reading of the contemporaneous records and mainstream reporting shows seven Republican senators voted to convict at Trump’s second impeachment trial and ten House Republicans voted to impeach in the House; there is no corroborated reporting in the provided sources that 18 Republican senators joined Democrats to impeach or convict Donald Trump ^{[1] [2] [3]}.