Neither the imputation of 34 counts of forgery linked to the bribery of the porn actress Stormy Daniels nor the subsequent conviction for sexual assault and defamation of the writer Jean Carroll ruffled the former president and new candidate Donald Trump in terms of vote expectations. But the love of voters for the ex-president of the extreme right may not be infinite, unconditional and eternal. What social and political scenario does Trump now face when he has been accused of seven federal crimes for taking home and refusing to hand over hundreds of secret papers?
The Republicans have a difficult ballot. And in his decision, for or against continuing to bet on his extremist leader, the temperature of public opinion will be a key aspect. For now, a survey by the YouGov polling company shows that Americans see the Daniels and Carroll cases as less difficult than the one related to the concealment of classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago residence, as well as the assault on the Capitol. on January 6, 2021. Compared to 52% of citizens who judge the falsification of business records to mask secret payments to an adult film star as a “serious crimeâ€, the proportion of voters who qualify the concealment and retention of classified documents amounts to 65%.
Among Republicans, that is, those who generally love Trump, the same comparison shows a jump from 28% to 42% between those who see the forgery for that bribe as “serious” and those who put that label on the alleged crimes in the Mar-a-Lago case. In addition, 50% of the Republicans consulted – and 66% of the general population – also see a conspiracy to reverse the results of a presidential election as serious, which is the crime that the Prosecutor believes that Trump could have committed in the Georgia state. Likewise, 47% of conservatives and 64% of all citizens consider the incitement to an insurrection as the one that clearly took place in the assault on the Capitol to be equally serious.
Should Trump be allowed to repeat as president if convicted of a “felony”? Only 23% overall said yes versus 62% who said no. In the Republican field, only 39% affirmed that in this case he should be removed from the White House, while 43% thought that he should be allowed to continue despite everything.
The conclusion seems clear. A sentence and perhaps a final indictment against Trump for federal crimes such as those that the prosecutor attributes to him in the Mar-a-Lago affair would reduce the support of the independent or undecided electorate. Republican voters show more doubts. So, while the incidence of the recent impeachment in the Republican primaries may be limited, the impact in the presidential ones is shaping up to be considerable.
With a view to the primaries, the multitude of rivals facing the former president favors his voting expectations from the outset. There are, for now, eleven adversaries. Both the mathematics and the rules of those elections and the tendencies of voters in these types of situations make such an influx of competitors good news for Trump, who thus divides his critics and has a better chance of defeating them.
According to the polls published until last Friday and synthesized by FiveThirtyEight analysts, the ultra leader by far leads the vote expectation for the primaries, with a rate of more than 53% that places him well ahead of that long ten rivals. Only the governor of Florida and second in the running, Ron DeSantis, has double-digit support, with just under 22%. The others are not even close to 10%. Former Vice President Mike Pence launched into the race on Monday of last week, with a 5.4% start. They are followed by former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, with 4.5%; businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with 3.5% and Senator Tim Scott with 2.2%. Neither former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, nor former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hurchinson, to point to other prominent rivals, were leading an average of 1% in the latest polls this month, according to a FiveThirtyEight calculation.
The multitude of contenders benefits Trump in different ways. Starting with the election system, which the former president himself helped modify in his favor. The starting situation is an important portion of red states where the applicant who wins the primaries takes all the delegates who will vote in the national election of the party’s candidate; in many other states, a method similar to that of the d’Hont law makes the two or three candidates with the most votes share the entire pie.
After the experience of 2016, where the abundance of adversaries had already determined his success, Trump promoted the “winner takes all†rule wherever he could, to the point that the number of states where he governs passed under his mandate. from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to a Bloomberg study.
With all these numbers on the table, however, it is impossible to predict to what extent the impeachment and possible prosecution of Trump may erode his base and, consequently, cause a shift between party leaders and conservative donors.
Less unpredictable is Trump’s reaction. It will be brutal. Or he will already have stopped being Trump.
