Trump’s Charges Bring Doubts, Hopes and Uncertainty in Both Parties
To some Republicans and Democrats, the charges appeared flimsy and less consequential than many had hoped. To others, the case had the potential to reverberate politically.
The failure of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination to go on offense — indeed, their willingness to defend him — underscored the centrality of the former president in the G.O.P. His opponents appeared to be using the same playbook that a crowded field of White House hopefuls ran in 2016, laying back, absorbing Mr. Trump’s blows and hoping external factors would take him down.
“It’s still serious,” said former Representative Reid J. Ribble of Wisconsin, a Republican critic of Mr. Trump who has doubts about the case. “Who wants to be charged with any crime? Most normal Americans will never be charged with a misdemeanor their entire life. To be charged with 30 of them? I mean, it’s shocking, and for somebody who you want to have as a leader in the country, it’s a disqualifier for me.”
Political response to Trump charges
A day after the arraignment of Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, the U.S. political landscape is more uncertain than ever as the former president’s legal peril grows.
To some Republican and Democratic leaders, the charges appeared to be flimsy, a hodgepodge of bookkeeping accusations that felt far less consequential than many had hoped. To others in both parties, the charges and the attendant spectacle were troubling and had the potential to reverberate and hurt the former president politically.
At the very least, the charges will have to be answered in a court of law, extending a tawdry tale of extramarital affairs into a courtroom for a party that once considered itself the home of family values. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges — during his third run for the White House, no less.
But the moment did not yield a rush to abandon him by many voters or party leaders. In a focus group, voters who had cast ballots for Trump in 2016 and 2020 said they would vote for him again. Even conservative evangelical leaders who might be expected to look askance at the extramarital dalliances contained in the allegations were supportive.
Quotable: “It feeds into Donald Trump’s whole theme that the Democrats are out to get him at any cost and will stretch any law and come up with any novel legal theory to do so,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. He added, “It plays right into his hands.”
For more: The indictment of the former president has unlocked a rush of fund-raising and has frozen the 2024 Republican primary.
But the moment did not yield a rush to abandon him by many voters or party leaders. On Friday, the day after the news of Mr. Trump’s indictment, Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster and Trump critic, assembled a focus group of voters who had cast ballots for him in 2016 and 2020 to ask how the charges were affecting their next vote.
Every one of the voters said they would cast a ballot again for the former president, the first unanimous verdict since she began assembling such groups for the 2024 election cycle.
On Wednesday, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, who is exploring a run for the Republican nomination, told a Fox News reporter in New Hampshire: “Sometimes we have to put all our politics aside and say, ‘Is this the right thing to do for the country?’ This sure doesn’t look right.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is widely expected to be Mr. Trump’s biggest threat for the Republican presidential nomination, was silent on the subject on Wednesday, though he did win the endorsement of a conservative House Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Mr. Massie said in a text message that he had planned to make the endorsement “without regard to the arraignment, and decided not to let Alvin Bragg get in the way.”
Even conservative evangelical leaders who might be expected to look askance at the extramarital dalliances contained in the allegations were supportive, continuing a pattern of overlooking Mr. Trump’s personal conduct that dates back most prominently to their response to the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016. Ms. Daniels said she had sex with Mr. Trump in California in 2006, as his wife, Melania Trump, was home caring for their baby, Barron, in New York.
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“This has already been litigated by evangelicals in 2016 and 2020,” said the Rev. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of a Texas megachurch, who delivered an opening prayer at Mr. Trump’s campaign rally in Waco last month. “And I don’t think evangelicals want to re-litigate it.”
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
No
Asked whether he believed Mr. Trump’s denials about having a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels, Mr. Jeffress said that was not his judgment to make: “That’s really between him, Stormy Daniels and God.”
If anything, Mr. Trump’s rivals now see a moment of peak power for him that they hope will dissipate.
“Trump just got a big old shot in the arm with people who don’t like where we are and don’t trust the government,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who this year helped start the presidential campaign of Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations. “They are frightened of the unfairness that seems to be coming from the judiciary right now.”
