The headline the New York Times’ editorial board settled on was simple: “Impeach.”

The same could be said of the “damning” case laid out against President Donald Trump, the Times said Saturday, as it joined the growing roster of national and regional newspapers who say the Senate should take up convincing accusations of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Major publications’ opinions are divided as the House prepares for a historic vote Wednesday, and a host of traditionally more conservative editorial boards have yet to weigh in – including several that snubbed Trump back in 2016 by conspicuously breaking from long histories of Republican endorsements.

Many papers backing impeachment have described a slow-building choice amid hearings into whether Trump abused his position to pressure a foreign power for personal political gain.

“With reluctance . . .” the Tampa Bay Times’ piece begins.

“Until recently,” USA Today writes, “we believed that impeachment proceedings would be unhealthier for an already polarized nation than simply leaving Trump’s fate up to voters next November.”

The Los Angeles Times mulled a call for impeachment for months, said Nicholas Goldberg, the paper’s editorial page editor. Staffers worried that the proceedings would just inflame Americans’ divisions and were unlikely to result in Trump’s departure no matter the findings.

They watched House testimonies intently, Goldberg said, as Trump’s defenders accused those pushing for impeachment of jumping at a chance to undermine the president and his agenda. Democrats contend that the president withheld important military aid and a coveted White House meeting to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate opponents.

“We don’t want to be part of a rush to judgment,” Goldberg told The Washington Post.

By last week, he and his colleagues had listened to slew of career officials describe their discomfort. They’d heard about messages and phone calls documenting mounting pressure on Ukraine. They’d listened to the concerns of constitutional scholars.

“We’ve seen enough,” they wrote.

As for the worries that made them “late converts”: Those “must yield to the overwhelming evidence that Trump perverted U.S. foreign policy for his own political gain,” the editorial board continued. “That sort of misconduct is outrageous and corrosive of democracy.”

The impeachment inquiry was sparked by a whistleblower complaint over a call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump asked the Ukrainian leader for probes into Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as into a debunked theory of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

The inquiry culminated this week in two articles of impeachment, which accuse Trump of both abusing his power and obstructing Congress by not cooperating with the investigation. The House Judiciary Committee approved the articles Friday along party lines, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to acquit Trump if necessary and as the president decried “an embarrassment to this country.” Republicans have called impeachment an effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Editorial boards, too – groups of opinion writers who operate independently from the newsroom, as papers like the Times have been careful to note – have split on whether Trump should become the third U.S. president to be impeached.

The Wall Street Journal slammed Democrats’ case as “weak” Wednesday, arguing that “abuse of power” as the president’s critics have outlined it is too vague. Moving ahead on that charge would create a “a new and low standard for impeachment that will come back to haunt future Presidents of all parties,” the paper said.

The Journal joined Republicans in calling impeachment proceedings politically motivated, saying Democrats simply hate Trump and his style of governing.

“There was wide agreement that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton violated criminal statutes,” the editorial board wrote. “In this case Democrats don’t even try to allege a criminal act.”

But the editorial pages of other national outlets – the New York Times Times, The Washington Post and USA Today – have put their weight behind impeachment, along with major local papers around the country.

The list includes the Los Angeles Times, the Tampa Bay Times, the Orlando Sentinel, the Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle.

“There may be no single, smoking gun, but there’s ample acrid black stuff rising from the White House,” the New York Daily News wrote.

Some papers are waiting to say whether the president should ultimately be kicked out of office. The L.A. Times’ editorial board has made clear it dislikes Trump’s style and policies, Goldberg said Saturday – they’re a “liberal editorial page in the middle of a liberal city” – but he says his colleagues want to hear the proceedings out.

He’s hoping for the same attitude from readers, despite entrenched views.

“Look, we live in very, very partisan times,” he said. “Many are dug in. Many people aren’t listening to arguments on both sides.

“But I certainly hope there are people out there who are still keeping an open mind,” he said.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, meanwhile, says they’re already convinced that the president should be removed. They give significant weight to the second charge of obstruction – the charge “that should have us all frightened,” the Inquirer’s editorial board writes, saying the House must signal that Congress is on equal footing with the executive branch.

The Post’s editorial board notes that Trump’s refusal to cooperate in any way with Congress’s inquiry sets him apart from past presidents. Trump has blocked the release of documents as well as a dozen current and former senior officials’ testimonies, and papers argue that those missing voices could clarify Trump’s intent in withholding military aid.

Editorial boards favoring impeachment emphasize their fears about a process so deeply divisive, including some Trump critics’ worries that the inquiry will aid the president’s reelection.

“But the House must make its decision based on the facts and merits, setting aside unpredictable second-order effects,” The Post wrote.

Then there are the newspapers that have yet to come down on one side or the other. Among the holdouts, as Politico reported this week, are papers such as the Arizona Republic, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle that made headlines back in 2016 for ditching their traditional Republican endorsement out of distaste for Trump.

That’s not to say they won’t back impeachment in the coming days. Michael Lindenberger, deputy opinion editor for the Houston Chronicle, told Politico that his editorial board is still deciding when to speak out and may do so before Wednesday’s House vote.

Papers silent so far on moving impeachment to the Senate have also been willing to criticize Trump and his supporters. The Chronicle argued for an impeachment inquiry even before the Ukraine scandal, pointing to disturbing revelations from Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. Trump’s pressure of Ukraine was “reckless,” the Arizona Republic has said. The Columbus Dispatch blasted Republicans “willing to assault our democracy in order to preserve their places in it” as they call the impeachment inquiry unconstitutional.

But some question whether impeachment will solve anything.

“The Democratic Congress will impeach,” Phil Boas, editorial director of the Arizona Republic, told Politico. “The Republican Senate will acquit. And then we’ll have an election. The rest is all posturing.”

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