June 25, 2023

Republicans Stand by Their Mess

New polls show that despite multiple indictments, Donald Trump still has a big lead in the GOP primary.

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Donald Trump, a twice-impeached (for now!), twice-arrested former president, remains the GOP voters’ top choice to be commander-in-chief. They do not appear bothered by the fact that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse, nor do they seem to care that he faces 37 federal charges related to his tendency to store classified documents like this. That, of course, is in addition to facing 34 felony counts related to Trump’s alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. 

No, Republican voters don’t seem tired of any of these historically bad milestones. That’s at least the big takeaway from two new polls released this week. But has Trump’s support actually grown amid his mounting legal peril—or is it simply a static feature of this GOP, something you can count on because Trump is simply still alive and running for president? He claimed the former on Saturday, telling an adoring crowd at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that he’s “probably the only person in history” to get indicted, only to have his “numbers go up.”

The data on that seems to be mixed. According to NBC, Trump’s support among Republican primary voters grew 5 percentage points, from 46 percent in April to 51 percent in June. Meanwhile, a CNN poll released Tuesday suggested that Trump’s support has dipped among Republicans, from 53 percent in May to 47 percent in June.

Either way, Trump’s grip on Republicans remains strong. Perhaps that explains why they don’t mind literally paying for his legal defense.

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