‘Not as Dominant’: Post-Indictment Polling Suggests Trump’s Hold over the GOP May Be Loosening

If the reaction to Donald Trump’s first indictment suggested that his legal woes might only strengthen his support among primary voters, the reaction to his second indictment, with its “damning” charges, suggests that his political standing may in fact not be immune to those woes.

I discussed the former president’s strength in the polls with Ipsos senior vice president Chris Jackson, who said the “obvious long-term trend is that Trump continues to dominate the Republican Party,” but noted that the GOP primary electorate seems more shaken by the most recent indictment than past legal developments.

You may remember that Trump’s support in the polls — and in conservative media — dipped in the wake of the 2022 midterms as Florida governor Ron DeSantis picked up steam. That marginal loss of support held up until Trump’s Manhattan indictment on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

“What we saw after that is actually Republicans sort of came back to Trump, to some extent, and we saw his margin in the Republican primary for 2024 increase,” Jackson explained, as DeSantis lost some ground.

“It really seemed like that first indictment gave Trump something to sort of rally the base around him in a way he hadn’t really had in the last couple of months leading up to that,” he said. “So it did help his position in a way.”

That bump held solid through the spring, but it began to deflate after Trump was charged with 37 federal felony counts as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents.

“Now we’re seeing Trump still in the dominant position with . . . the Republican electorate for 2024, but it’s not as dominant as we saw earlier in the year,” he said. “In our polling with Reuters, the margin has gone from about a 30-percentage-point advantage for Trump in mid spring down to about a 20-percentage-point advantage now.”

“It’s hard to tell exactly what causes this, but it definitely is happening after the second indictment,” he said. “It looks like there are some parts of the Republican base that may be giving DeSantis and some of the other candidates a second look.”

A CNN poll conducted by SSRS found Trump’s support falling from 53 percent in May to 47 percent today among Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters. The poll also reported a ten-point drop in Trump’s favorability from 77 percent in May to 67 percent in June.

More than half of Republicans polled said Trump’s conduct did not impact their perception of him, but instead many were concerned about his “effectiveness” as a president.

But Trump’s loss has not resulted in solid gains for any one of his competitors. “DeSantis has picked up a little bit, and then all of the next tier of candidates are seeing light increases, slight gains,” he said. “It’s so tiny,” though, that “it really is better characterized as Trump losing some support, it hasn’t necessarily coalesced behind someone else, and I think that’s how Trump was able to do well in 2016.”

And not all of the polling supports the Trump-decline narrative.

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted after the second indictment but ahead of Trump’s arraignment found that Trump was losing “very little if any ground.” Trump notched 53 percent support in that poll, while DeSantis trailed 30 points behind at 23 percent.

Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy told me a “good argument could be made that Trump’s base is not wavering.”

“The voters to watch are the independents. Is he going [to] lose or gain ground with them?”

As Trump stares down a potential third and fourth indictment over his alleged role in efforts to reverse the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and for his alleged role in coordinating the January 6 Capitol riot, Jackson predicts the public reaction to future charges will be “very dependent” on how voters perceive the substance of the indictments.

“We know for instance that Republicans view the charges in the second indictment as being more serious than the first one, even while they still say he shouldn’t be charged with anything,” he said.

In addition to the severity of the allegations, reaction from other Republican candidates and conservative media could play a major role in influencing voters.

This second indictment prompted some of Trump’s 2024 opponents to become more vocal in their criticisms of the former president. Asa Hutchinson called for Trump to drop out of the race and asked the RNC to do away with its loyalty-pledge requirement for candidates to appear on the debate stage, so that candidates won’t have to vow to support a man who could become a convicted felon. (The RNC declined this suggestion.) Chris Christie said Trump is his “own worst enemy,” and Nikki Haley said that, if the claims in the indictment are true, Trump “was incredibly reckless with our national security.”

“We are seeing a little bit of a break now, and I think if we see continued breaks, we might see DeSantis pick up a little bit more ground or Trump lose a little bit more ground — but I don’t think we’ll ever see Trump lose substantial chunks of the Republican base,” Jackson said.

The CNN poll found that 45 percent of Republicans believe that presidential contenders should not take a position on Trump’s second indictment, while another 42 percent said candidates should be outspoken in their condemnation of Trump’s prosecution.

It remains to be seen how a trial might play out for Trump as a presidential candidate. The trial in Trump’s classified documents case is set to begin on August 14, though it is highly likely that the trial date will be pushed back as Judge Aileen Cannon negotiates particulars with both sides. The judge has currently set aside two weeks for the trial to take place.

Trump addressed the case this week during an interview — his first since the indictment — with Fox News’ Bret Baier.

The anchor asked why Trump didn’t just hand over the records, to which the former president responded: “I want to go through the boxes and get my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over to [the National Archives and Records Administration] yet. And I was very busy as you’ve sort of seen.”

Asked if he has any worries about the charges, Trump said: “Based on the law, zero.”

Trump also told Baier he hasn’t made a “definitive decision” on whether to participate in the primary debates, but questioned why he would participate in a debate that is hosted by a “hostile” network like Fox, which is hosting the first debate in August.

He also asked why he would let the other candidates “take shots at me” when he is so far ahead in the polls. He lobbed insults at Chris Christie, whom he called a “slob,” and Asa Hutchinson, whom he called “weak.”

Trump also spent a significant amount of time throughout the interview blasting DeSantis, whom he said he has nicknamed “DeSanctimonious” because he is “very disloyal.”

The two sides engaged in a heated war of words over Nevada last week, with former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, who is now leading a super PAC backing DeSantis, telling NBC News, “Trump hasn’t won Nevada the last two go-arounds. I was a two-time Trump chair. I don’t see a path for him to win Nevada in a general election. Those voters are not coming back.”

“Not surprised Ron DeSantis is looking for a set of balls,” Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita told the outlet.

“So Adam Laxalt, who lost the governor’s race in ’18 and lost the Senate race in ’22, is lecturing President Trump?” LaCivita added. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

Erin Perrine, the communications director for Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, shot back at LaCivita: “The Trump team’s obsession with men’s genitalia is more perverted than a woke grooming book.”

Nikki Haley shared the article on Twitter in a post saying, “Boys will be boys” alongside a rolling-eyes emoji.

Meanwhile, Tim Scott’s day job has left him open to attack from fellow Republicans.

Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom is blasting the Recovering Executive Compensation from Unaccountable Practices Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Scott and Senator Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) last week, which would give regulators power to claw back compensation for executives of failed banks.

AAF has hit the bill as Elizabeth Warren (the progressive Massachusetts senator) “lite.”

“Earlier this year we witnessed the failure and subsequent taxpayer bailout of three federally regulated banks as a result of regulators asleep at the wheel,” AAF chair and former Pence chief of staff Marc Short said in a statement to National Review. “Senator Warren introduced a bill allowing bank regulators to claw back executive pay when banks fail, and now Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Tim Scott have introduced a bill that is virtually identical and, in some ways, worse.”

Short said the bills are “cut from the same cloth and their effects would be equally damaging to the private sector.”

“The Scott-Brown bill would expand the role of government in the private sector, introducing greater corporate governance requirements and layers of bureaucracy,” he added. “Instead of supporting legislation that serves as a vehicle for progressive policy priorities, conservatives should address and preempt the causes of bank failures, starting with the catastrophic mismanagement of the Fed.”

Scott, for his part, has called the bill a “commonsense solution to address executive accountability.”

Around NR

• Trump’s interview with Bret Baier was a success, despite suggestions that he might have hurt his own legal case with his comments about his handling of documents, Rich Lowry writes.

I believe Trump’s legal defense has to be, first and foremost, getting elected president to squash the case; and, failing that, getting pardoned by a Republican president in the event Trump doesn’t win the nomination; and failing that, convincing enough people that the case is unfair so a juror simply refuses to convict.

Given that the first step to becoming president is winning the GOP nomination, last night has to be considered a success for him.

• Noah Rothman offers an opposing argument, saying he’s “not sure Trump did himself too many favors” during the Fox interview.

Yes, he provided his supporters with some rhetorical ammunition to make it through a taxing news cycle. But when prompted by Bret Baier to allay Republican voters’ concerns that he can win the White House again, Trump declined the opportunity. Instead, he did what Republican voters don’t like that much: He insisted that he is the rightful president right now in all but the official capacity.

• Bobby Miller argues in favor of giving Chris Christie a chance to debate his Republican opponents. For “necessary introspection to happen, Christie must be a part of the GOP primary debates.”

Christie’s combative debate style, honed through years of navigating the rough and tumble world of New Jersey politics, is precisely what the Republican Party needs right now. A refusal to engage in this internal debate leaves the party ill-prepared for the eventual confrontation with an emboldened Democratic Party whose agenda grows more extreme by the day. Facing this ever-present danger, Republicans must present a robust counter-argument that has been tested and refined through vigorous debate.

• Scott vowed, if elected, to finish the investigation into Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s overseas business dealings. “The ‘big guy’ has some explaining to do,” Scott said of President Biden at a Fox News town hall hosted by Sean Hannity. Caroline Downey has more here.

• The 2024 Republican presidential field came out swinging against the DOJ after it was announced Hunter Biden had reached a plea deal and will likely avoid jail time after being charged with illegally possessing a firearm and failing to pay taxes for two years. The deal only further added ammunition to several candidates’ arguments that the DOJ must be completely overhauled. More from me here.

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