"Cheating to save himself from a 2020 election defeat" vs. "personal political gain."
We should pound the idea that Trump abused his office for "cheating out of fear" in order to "save himself" in the Ukraine case. That framing puts Trump in the proper light. It paints him as a cornered, fearful man. More importantly, it emphasizes motive.
Our side really is bad at this rhetoric stuff. In this case (as in many, many cases) we seem to be somewhat lamely trying to trigger "process or legal norms." We are "tattling to Mommy." We think that we can cleverly imply Trump committed a campaign finance crime because he sought "political gain" (a thing of value) from a foreign country. The legal process will be triggered. End of story.
Nope. That just won't work. It will backfire. The legal process will sustain damage, not Trump and his Republican servants.
To support our legal processes and norms, we need to appeal to the reasons the norms exist, not to the norms themselves. Appealing to the norms themselves invites them to be questioned and called "fake" in simpleminded, lazy tribal appeals. The campaign finance laws are there to prevent corruption and cheating. We need to point out Trump was corruptly trying to cheat. That will sell both campaign finance laws and the accusation of abuse of power.
Also, universal human values produce extremely low regard and disgust for cowardly, cheating behavior to avoid humiliating defeat. We are less inclined to judge how people obtain "personal gain." Trump wasn't "being selfish," in other words. He wasn't being "greedy to obtain personal gain." A whole lot of people will look the other way if those are the accusations. Trump needs to be seen as the bully kid on the playground who was seeing a punch in the nose in his future and was scared.
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