Indictment could propel Trump closer to 2024 Republican nomination
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[August 02, 2023]
By Tim Reid
(Reuters) - Donald Trump's indictment on Tuesday for his alleged role in
efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat will likely fuel his march
toward the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination, analysts and
party strategists say.
"This will rally his supporters to his talking points - about how the
establishment and the 'deep state' are against him and against them,"
Stu Rothenberg, a non-partisan political analyst, said before the
indictment was handed down.
Opinion polls show Republican support for Trump surging since the first
of three indictments was issued in March. He is far and away the
front-runner, leading second-place Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, by
close to 30 percentage points.
Trump, the former president, has made the indictments a central plank of
his campaign platform, portraying himself as the target of a biased
justice system, the first former president in U.S. history to face
criminal charges.
Minutes before the indictment was announced, Trump called it "fake" on
his Truth Social media platform.
A Trump campaign statement later said: "President Trump has always
followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly
accomplished attorneys." The statement likened his indictments this year
to "Nazi Germany in the 1930s."
The indictments are piling up - three so far this year. And so are the
court dates.
His New York state criminal trial involving a hush money payment to a
porn star is due to start on March 25, 2024, and his Florida trial in a
federal classified documents case is scheduled to begin on May 20.
Both would take place just months before the November election. So might
a third trial in this latest case centered on his failed bid to overturn
his 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump must appear in
court on Thursday in this case.
Strategists said that while the indictments could help Trump solidify
support within his base and win the Republican nomination, his ability
to capitalize on them may be more limited in next year's general
election, when he will have to win over more skeptical moderate
Republicans and independents.
In a July Reuters/Ipsos poll, 37% of independents said the criminal
cases against Trump made them less likely to vote for him for president,
compared to 8% who said they were more likely to do so.
Underscoring the potential closeness of the November 2024 general
election, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Biden leading Trump 37% to
35% in a hypothetical match-up, with the remaining 28% saying they were
not sure of their choice or whether they would vote for someone else or
no one at all.
The strategists said Trump was likely to stick to his campaign playbook
for now and use the latest indictment to reinforce his central argument
that - despite being a former president - he is an outsider running to
protect his supporters from a runaway Justice Department rigged against
Republicans.
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U.S President Donald Trump returns to
the White House after news media declared Democratic U.S.
presidential nominee Joe Biden to be the winner of the 2020 U.S.
presidential election, in Washington, U.S., November 7, 2020.
REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
"They're not indicting me, they're indicting you. I just happen to
be standing in their way," Trump declared at a campaign rally in
Pennsylvania on July 29.
Trump's rivals for the nomination have so far largely stayed silent
about his first two indictments, although that could change given
this latest one alleges he sought to overturn an election in an
assault on a bastion of American democracy.
"If the past pattern holds, with conservative media and Republicans
sort of not going after Trump on it, this isn't going to make a
significant difference with the Republican 2024 primary," said Chris
Jackson, a public opinion researcher at polling firm Ipsos, which
conducts polls for Reuters and other media organizations.
Shortly before the hush-money indictment in March, Trump's share of
party support stood at 44%, 15 percentage points above his closest
rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who had 29% support. After he
was indicted in the hush money case, his support rose to 49%, while
DeSantis slipped to 23%.
Since then that dynamic has held. A second batch of criminal charges
in June accusing Trump of willful retention and improper sharing of
national defense information had little lasting impact on Trump's
polling numbers, Jackson said.
The relentless media focus on Trump and the indictments also drowns
out his rivals as they seek a breakthrough moment in the Republican
primary battle, a race Trump has dominated for months, said John
Feehery, a Republican strategist.
"(DeSantis) is not going to be able to get a word in edgewise,"
Feehery said.
Like Jackson at Ipsos, Rothenberg predicts a close general election
in November 2024, no matter who the Republicans nominate to face off
against Biden, the likely Democratic opponent.
But if it is Trump, Rothenberg said he is in danger of losing enough
independents and moderates to lose the election, in part because of
the indictments.
"There can be a point at which various groups of people along the
way say, 'I've just had it. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of this
fighting. I'm tired of Donald Trump,'" Rothenberg said.
(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
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