A big question facing many Republicans — voters and powerful people within the party — is what happens if Donald Trump is convicted of one or some of the crimes he has been charged with in recent months? More specifically, will he still have the support of the party in his bid to return to the White House?
Trump’s former running mate and vice president, Mike Pence — the man Trump blames for not helping him overturn the 2020 election — said on ABC’s “This Week” that even if Trump is convicted of a crime, it will be up to the American people to decide.
On Sunday, Pence told “This Week” moderator Jonathan Karl, “I think that needs to be left to the American people. Look, let’s let the former president have his day in court. Let’s maintain a presumption of innocence in — in this matter and in the other matter that, you know, unfolded this week here in Georgia. But, I’ve said many times, Jon, I would have preferred that these matters be left to the judgment of the American people. I mean no one’s above the law, but — but with regard to the president’s future, I — my hope is when we get to that debate stage, and I’m — I’m still kind of hoping maybe he’ll come, is that we can really have a debate about the challenges facing the American people, the issues the American people are facing in the wake of the failed policies of the Biden administration.”
That’s a rather typical response from many Republicans: stop short of fully condemning the former president’s actions, talk about how he’s innocent until proven guilty, say something about the will of the American people and then pivot to talking points about President Joe Biden.
During an appearance on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who is also running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, followed the same pattern, ducking moderator Chuck Todd’s valiant attempts to get him to talk about whether or not he believed Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.
Burgum said, “I think there's an entire cable news industry, there's an entire social media industry built around trying to answer that question.”
Todd pushed him hard, asking, “You know, it's been interesting to me in a couple of interviews plus than the one we've just had now, you’ve been quite comfortable bringing up Hunter Biden on Joe Biden. But it’s remarkable to me how uncomfortable you — and you’re not alone here — you are bringing up the legal problems and the charges against Donald Trump. And I get it. It’s fear of alienating a majority of where the party is. But it’s sort of odd. Wouldn't somebody being charged with 91 criminal counts be somebody that you'd want to see drop out of the race? I mean, should they even be running for office?”
Burgum followed what feels like a playbook, saying, “Well, again, Chuck, this is — the voters get to decide who runs for office in America. And whether it's a local election or whether it's, you know, state or federal, the voters are the ones that ultimately get to decide. And again, if we're going to live in a democracy, at some point we’ve got to trust the voters.”
Meanwhile, polls seem to indicate that the more Trump gets in trouble with the law (well, at least indicted), the greater his popularity becomes. As of now, most polls show him dominating the Republican field. A new poll out just this morning — the first 2024 NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll, conducted by Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer — shows Trump with a more than a 20-point lead over his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But in his latest piece for The Atlantic, Russell Berman writes, “What the Polls May Be Getting Wrong About Trump.”
Berman writes, “A new, broader survey of Republican voters suggests that the indictments have, in fact, dented Trump’s advantage in the primary. The study was designed by a group of university researchers who argue that pollsters have been asking the wrong questions to assess how the indictments have affected Republican voters.”
The study theorized that the polls were asking flawed questions.
Berman writes, “To test their theory, they commissioned a SurveyMonkey poll of more than 5,000 Americans in which half were asked questions in this counterfactual format: ‘Suppose you did not know about the indictment. How would you have answered the following question: How likely are you to vote for Donald Trump?’ They asked the other half questions that pollsters more commonly use.”
So what happened?
Berman writes, “Like other surveys, the poll based on the traditional format found that the indictments increased Trump’s support among Republican primary voters. But the poll based on the counterfactual framing found that the indictments slightly hurt his standing in the party, reducing by 1.6 percent the likelihood that Republicans would vote for him.”
Only 1.6%? That doesn’t seem like much. But the point seems to be that the indictments haven’t hurt Trump, but they haven’t necessarily given him a boost either.
Then again, the bottom line: Trump remains the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee.
Matt Graham, one of the authors of the survey and an assistant professor at Temple University, told Berman, “I don’t think that survey researchers should be sending the public profoundly pessimistic messages about how their fellow citizens think and reason when those aren’t actually true. There’s plenty to be pessimistic about in our politics, but we don’t need to pile on by acting like people think that indictments are good.”
However, the NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll found that 65% of likely Republican caucus goers don’t think Trump has committed serious crimes, compared to 26% who believe he has committed serious crimes. An additional 9% say they don’t know.
One more interesting nugget: A majority of Republican caucus goers in Iowa — 52% — say their minds aren’t made up, and that they could be persuaded to support another candidate.
