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“The people,” he added. “The people, is my conclusion.”

Mr. Alexander first took that position last week, when he announced that he would vote against the consideration of new witnesses and documents in Mr. Trump’s trial. He acknowledged the merits of the House case for removing the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress: that the president had withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats.

But Mr. Alexander’s decision was in part influenced by the proximity of the election. (When pressed about how he would have voted outside an election year, he said he most likely would have arrived at the same conclusion.)

“I don’t think it’s the kind of inappropriate action that the framers would expect the Senate to substitute its judgment for the people in picking a president,” he said on Sunday.

That argument has come under fire from Democrats, who say the nature of Mr. Trump’s offense — trying to persuade a foreign nation to interfere in the 2020 race — could compromise the election.

“They need to remove him from office because he is threatening to still cheat in the next election by soliciting foreign interference,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the lead House impeachment manager, said Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “And so the normal remedy for a president’s misconduct isn’t available here because the elections, he is already trying to prejudice and compromise with further foreign interference.”