POLITICS
Trump’s Indictment Will Have Little Effect on Electoral Politics
Republicans like Trump and are happy to support him as their candidate for President
The indictment of a former President is, of course, a big story. Many news outlets described it as unprecedented, and at one level that is true. No former US President has been indicted before. And yesterday’s arraignment may only be the beginning, not the end, of Donald Trump’s legal jeopardy — as at least three other investigations into his criminal conduct are ongoing.
Of course, the most important story about Trump’s indictment is not the indictment itself, but the support he has received from nearly all corners of his political party. Instead of viewing the criminal behavior of one of their party’s leading members as an issue about democracy, Republicans stood by Trump.
It’s the same pattern we have seen with Republican reaction to Trump’s other attacks on democratic values — the incitement of the January 6th attack, his attempt to blackmail Volodymir Zelensky into investigating Joe Biden on false pretenses, his open and frequent racist statements, and his misogyny. Over nearly eight years since Trump announced his candidacy for the Presidency, nothing has changed.
Nothing has changed is also a good summary of a story of lesser importance — the electoral implications of Trump’s indictment.
Trump himself announced that he would be arrested in a social media post on March 19th. His rating in the 20 polls from 2023 that asked this question averaged out to 41.0% favorable and 54.4% unfavorable.[1] In the seven polls taken since then, his favorability-unfavorability ratings are 40.3–55.3.
I guess you could make a big deal of that one percent decline, but you probably shouldn’t. Here’s a chart that shows a scatterplot of Trump’s favorability ratings this year by date. If you can spot when it became know that Trump would be indicted, you have a sharper eye than I do.
And we can see similar results in other poll questions that have been released since news about Trump’s likely indictment came out.
· Navigator Research found that 58% of Americans “think Donald Trump has committed a crime;” 33% think he did not.
· A Morning Consult poll shows that 51% of Americans approve of “the Manhattan grand jury’s decision to indict Trump” while 38% oppose it.
· An ABC News-IPSOS poll found more people undecided about whether Trump should “have been charged with a crime in this case,” among those that registered an opinion, 45% said he should and 32% said he should not.
· According to CNN’s poll, 60% of Americans approve of “the decision to indict Trump,” while 37% disapprove.
· YouGov America gave respondents a detailed prompt that discussed “34 felony counts for falsifying business records” and that “Trump pleaded not guilty on all counts,” and then asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the decision to charge Trump with these alleged crimes?” The details changed nothing, as 56% of respondents approved and 31% disapproved of the decision.
The numbers in each of these polls look very similar to Trump’s favorability — a majority of Americans give an anti-Trump response, but that majority is relatively slight, especially in context of Trump’s constant attacking of supposedly settled democratic norms and practices.
Of course, these surveys examine the general election electorate. But one piece of conventional wisdom is that the indictment will help Trump among Republican primary voters, boosting his chances of winning his party’s nomination. For example, Steven Shepard of Politico described the indictment as “what’s best for Trump’s chances of holding off Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other candidates for the nomination.”
Again, a more important question to ask is why do Republican primary voters support racism, coups, and criminal behavior from their candidates and how can we get them to return to supporting democratic values.
But the question of who wins the Republican primary is still important too. And the effect of the indictment on Trump’s chances is overstated, primarily because those chances were already very good. Trump has been leading in the polls since announcing his campaign back in November. And that lead was growing throughout 2023 (i.e. well before news of a possible indictment broke).
The conclusion today is the same as it was last month, and as it was after January 6th and after each of the myriad scandals, large and small, associated with Trump. Republican voters like Donald Trump as a politician and are happy to support him as their candidate for President.
So what effect will Trump’ indictment have on voters in either the general election or the 2024 Republican primary. My guess is it will have no effect at all. Trump is still mildly unpopular with the median voter despite his various scandals. And he is popular with the median Republican primary voter — probably because of his various scandals.
And it should not be surprising that so little has changed. It has long been clear who Donald Trump is. Many voters recoil from this. Many enthusiastically back him. Other unenthusiastically back Trump because of partisan obligation or the almost explicit bargain that Trump will promote establishment Republican priorities on taxes and judges.
Trump is running again for President, but unlike his opponents in the Republican primary contest, no one has to stretch to imagine what it would be like to have Trump in the Oval Office. We have seen him in that job and there is no indication that Trump will change his style if he wins re-election again.
That Trump was indicted this week is not a surprise to anyone, and thus, is likely “priced in” to how voters view him. For his opponents, it was expected because they think of him as someone deserving punishment for repeatedly violating the norms of democratic life. For his supporters, it was expected because they think he is unfairly targeted.
Regardless, the result is the same as it has been for a long time. Almost no one changes their opinion about Donald Trump. And I expect that will continue throughout the 2024 presidential campaign.
