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SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE | JULY 22, 2023

Indictments Solidify Trump's Dominance on GOP Primary

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The indictments against former President Donald Trump have become a prominent feature of his campaign for the White House and a quandary for his Republican primary opponents.

The former commander-in-chief informed the world this week of a third, imminent indictment against him, this time by a grand jury in Washington.

As with the previous two indictments, news of special counsel Jack Smith's potential charges against Mr. Trump in the January 6 investigation captivated the media and sucked the national attention away from the other Republican hopefuls jockeying for the spotlight.

The CNN interview of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was slotted into near-non-stop coverage of the former president's newest legal woes.

The unprecedented indictments have already made 2024 the most consequential election cycle in recent history. Both fueled the kind of media carnival which Trump has learned to harness in his own favor.

Now, with the possibility of two more indictments before the end of summer, Americans can expect two summer political blockbusters. Republicans and Democrats alike will have no choice but to watch both.

In the aftermath of the spectacle of the first two indictments, one thing is clear. The charges help Trump in the polls and make the rest of the Republican field struggle for relevance.

The first indictment marked an inflection point in primary polling. On March 30, a day before the indictment, DeSantis was arguably within reach of Trump, trailing by 16 points, according to an average of polls maintained by RealClearPolitics.

But after news of the New York indictment broke on March 31, Trump's polling numbers soared, while DeSantis's collapsed. By April 20, Trump had doubled his lead to 32 points. That gap widened to 37 points in the days leading up to the DeSantis campaign launch.

Candidates usually enjoy a bump in polling around the time of their official campaign announcement, as was the case for DeSantis for a few days. Then news of the second Trump indictment marked another trend reversal.

After DeSantis had narrowed the gap to 30 points, his ascent turned into a plateau amid wall-to-wall coverage of Trump's federal indictment in Miami beginning around June 8. Trump has since maintained a steady 30–34 point lead over DeSantis.

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The counterintuitive impact of the indictments on Republican support for Trump suggests that voters remain steadfast in their belief that the American justice system has become irreparably compromised by establishment interests. Trump consistently warned the public about this during his 2016 campaign, his four years in office, and after he departed the White House in the wake of the irregular 2020 election.

That dynamic leaves DeSantis and other serious candidates with no viable option for harnessing the indictments to their own advantage.

In voters' eyes, if these candidates don't condemn the weaponization of government, they will fuel suspicions of being part of the uniparty persecuting Mr. Trump. But if they don't seize the opportunity to land a blow, the former president will sail the ship of martyrdom straight to his Republican nomination.

While lots can change before the first primary next year, if the first two indictments are an indicator, the next two will help Trump continue dominating the Republican field.

The president said this week that he received a letter from a grand jury, which suggests he will soon be indicted by Mr. Smith in connection to the protests on Jan. 6, 2021. Meanwhile, anonymous sources told The Guardian on Friday that prosecutors in Georgia are preparing to charge the former president with racketeering.

The Washington case, if it goes forward, will come preloaded with a jury selected from a pool in what is arguably the most anti-Trump locale in the world, the District of Columbia, which Trump refers to as the swamp.

Mr. Trump's supporters already see the treatment of January 6 defendants by the prosecutors and juries in DC as oppressive. Any verdict against Trump will fit that pattern and fuel the passions of his supporters. While the overall political impact of such a sentencing is unpredictable, a sentencing would not prevent the former president from running for reelection.

To supporters of former president Donald Trump, the charges brought against him in New York and in Florida are an indictment of the system, especially since they were brought after he announced his candidacy for the nation's highest office. The pattern suggests that every new indictment will solidify the inevitability of Trump's triumph in the primary election.

The president, who is innocent until proven guilty, appears well aware of this trend, and, whether he admits it or not, is campaigning on his indictments.

"THE DEMOCRAT PROSECUTORS WAITED YEARS TO BRING CHARGES SO THAT THEY COULD INTERFERE WITH THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION." Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. "THEY ARE GETTING, HOWEVER, BIG BLOWBACK!!!"

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