2023-08-15 17:33:21
A few months ago, an American president had never been criminally charged. Monday August 14, Donald Trump was for the fourth time, in the state of Georgia this time. He and eighteen others, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, have been indicted by a grand jury for their alleged wrongful attempts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election in the landmark state in the outcome of the presidential election.
But this unprecedented reality is unlikely to reshuffle the Republican primaries for the 2024 presidential election, given Donald Trump’s lead (about 40 points in the polls) over his main opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
“It is still early days, but such a gap, at this stage of the campaign, has never been closed.recalls Seth McKee, professor of political science at Oklahoma State University. Trump is a former president who molded the Republican Party in his image and is still its leader. Its popular white base still believes in its message. In this context, it will be very difficult to catch up. »
Support at all costs from the “Maga” block
Especially since the most committed voters, those who vote in the primaries, live in a media bubble where they are told that he is the subject of a “witch hunt”. For them, the “real” criminal is none other than Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, whose run-ins with the taxman and opaque business activities abroad are exploited by the right to try to smear his father. .
According to a recent survey by New York Times-Siena College, Republicans who say they won’t vote ” Never “ for Trump represent 25% of the electorate in the primaries, while the so-called “Maga” base (Make America Great Again), who will support him at all costs, weighs 37%. Even the bloc of voters in between (also 37%), described as “can be persuaded”, leans on the side of the billionaire. They are 80% to say that their party must support him in his multiple arm wrestling with justice. And only 9% of them think he committed a crime.
In an attempt to rally them, the businessman’s adversaries are refining their strategies. Since the third indictment of the former president, in early August, for his role in the attempt to reverse the results of the presidential election of 2020 and the attack on Capitol Hill, some have decided to accentuate their criticisms. This is the case of Ron DeSantis, who admitted on Monday August 7 that his former mentor had been defeated in the 2020 presidential election.
Mike Pence, the former vice-president of Donald Trump, who was present on Capitol Hill during the assault on January 6, 2021, now says: “Anyone who puts himself above the Constitution of the United States should not be president. »
“Donald Trump puts his opponents in trouble”
A profitable strategy? Not for the moment. “Donald Trump is putting his opponents in trouble. If they are openly against him, they have no chance of winning the nomination,” summarizes Seth McKee. However, if his legal troubles work in his favor within his party, it will probably not be the case within the general electorate, especially in the “swing states”, those undecided states which will determine the outcome of the election.
Several signals should worry him. In addition to the underperformance of Republicans in the November 2022 midterm polls in these territories, focus groups (« focus groups ») held in May in four of the key states, with voters switching from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020, were not kind to him. The majority of attendees said they intended to continue supporting the 80-year-old Democratic candidate, even if they weren’t very excited about his candidacy.
“They have no reason to return to the fold of Donald Trumpestime Seth McKee. Republicans stubbornly support whoever has the least chance of winning the presidency. »
—–
Other lawsuits
The Stormy Daniels case: the justice of the State of New York prosecutes the former president for having “orchestrated” payments to obtain the silence of three individuals on sexual escapades whose revelations could have been harmful to him during the campaign for the presidential election of 2016.
The case of the archives: indicted by federal justice for “negligent management of confidential documents”, Donald Trump is accused of putting the security of the United States at risk by keeping confidential documents after his departure from the White House.
Storming the Capitol: Donald Trump was indicted on August 1 for “conspiracy against the American state”, obstructing due process and violating electoral rights, after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
#indicted #favorite