Mediaboss Marketing

Data shows the impact of an indictment on former President Donald Trump's standing with his party. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The indictment of former President Donald Trump is likely to deliver a temporary boost to him in the GOP primary but at the expense of his standing among the broader electorate that will ultimately decide whether he returns to the White House.

Thats according to recent polling conducted prior to Thursdays news of Trumps indictment.

Pollsters will likely go back into the field now, but the protracted run-up to charges being filed against the former president allowed a number of pollsters to gauge Americans opinions about the matter.

In a number of surveys released over the past two weeks, most Americans said the then-rumored charges against Trump were fair and serious. In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll released last week, 56 percent of Americans said, taken together, the investigations into Trumps conduct were fair, and 55 percent of voters in a Quinnipiac University poll out this week said the probe into Trumps alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels was serious.

But among Republicans, those numbers were all reversed. They believed Trump was being unfairly targeted 80 percent of Republicans in the Marist poll said Trump is facing a witch hunt and New York County District Attorney Alvin Braggs office was bringing charges for conduct that is either legal or not serious enough to merit criminal indictment.

Tracking Trump investigations

The pre-indictment poll numbers are consistent with the political dynamic thats existed since Trump took office six years ago: The Republican base especially downscale voters and those who describe themselves as very conservative rallies around Trump after scandals, even as those controversies take a toll on Trumps overall image.

So whats best for Trumps chances of holding off Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other candidates for the nomination an indictment that rallies most of Trumps competitors and rank-and-file Republican voters around him likely makes it more difficult for the GOP to reclaim the presidency in 2024.

Over the past month, as the prospect of criminal charges hung over Trump, the former president was actually increasing his national advantage over DeSantis, who hasnt officially entered the race yet, among GOP voters. The indictment does little to threaten that lead, at least in the short term as evidenced by DeSantis and the other declared or likely candidates decrying the charges on Thursday.

But its not just that Republican voters think Trump is being targeted or treated unfairly. A sizable portion of them believe hes fully innocent. In the Marist College poll, in addition to four-in-five Republicans calling the investigations into Trump a witch hunt, just 10 percent of GOP voters say Trump has done anything illegal. Nearly half, 45 percent, say Trump hasnt done anything wrong, while a sizable 43 percent describe Trumps behavior as unethical, but not illegal.

Similarly, in the pre-indictment Quinnipiac poll, only 20 percent of Republicans said the existence of criminal charges against Trump should disqualify him from running for president, and 52 percent said the Manhattan case was not serious at all.

Those numbers could change once the details of the indictment are made public. But for now, Republicans are out of step with the electorate as a whole. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the Quinnipiac poll say criminal charges should disqualify Trump from the campaign, and only 26 percent say the allegations in the New York case arent serious at all.

While most Republicans say the various Trump probes amount to a witch hunt in the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, its only 41 percent of all Americans. And 46 percent of Americans say Trump has committed crimes (compared to only 10 percent of Republicans), while another 29 percent call Trumps actions unethical, but not illegal.

In another pre-indictment survey released this week, the Democratic polling consortium Navigator Research found that 57 percent of voters supported indicting Trump for illegally using campaign funds for personal expenses a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and then lying about it, including a quarter of Republicans, 25 percent.

And the online pollster Morning Consult offered the first data point following news of the indictment, though there has been little time for it to sink in yet. In a flash poll conducted early Friday, 51 percent of voters said they supported the indictment, but only 19 percent of GOP primary voters agreed. (Polls conducted entirely in one day, let alone a half-day, are subject to greater sources of potential error than other surveys.)

There is one message for Trump defenders that is resonating: Just because Americans dont think Trump isnt the victim of a witch hunt doesnt mean they dont think politics is a factor at all.

In the Quinnipiac poll, 62 percent of respondents said the district attorneys case is mainly motivated by politics, including 93 percent of Republicans, 29 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents. Fewer than a third, 32 percent, said the case is mainly motivated by the law.

There are discreet limits to that argument, however. In Fridays Morning Consult poll, voters were split between those who said the New York grand jurys decision to indict Trump was mostly based on evidence that Trump violated the law (46 percent) and those who said the grand jury was motivated to damage Trumps political career (43 percent).

The coming days and weeks will bring more data, including following Trumps expected arraignment next week. And theres a hint in the Quinnipiac poll about how that moment could move the needle of public opinion.

Quinnipiacs pollsters cited Trumps statement earlier this week that his indictment was imminent and asked his supporters to protest and take our country back. They asked respondents if Trump was mainly acting out of concerns about democracy as a candidate who could face criminal charges while campaigning for the nations highest office, or mainly acting out of concerns for himself?

Of the subgroups identified by Quinnipiac, only one thought Trump was defending democracy in urging protests against his indictment: Republicans (56 percent). Majorities of all Americans (69 percent), Democrats (98 percent) and independents (71 percent) thought Trump was mostly concerned about himself.

Here are some of the people involved as the case against former President Donald Trump moves forward.

Michael Cohen

Trumps former attorney testified in 2018 that he made a hush-money payment on behalf of Trump.

Stormy Daniels

The porn actress is said to have received $130,000 for her silence about an affair with Trump.

Alvin Bragg

The Manhattan DA took office in January 2022 and inherited the investigation.

Allen Weisselberg

Prosecutors gave the ex-Trump Organization CFO immunity in their hush-money probe in 2018.

Joe Tacopina

A vocal member of Trumps legal team, he began representing Trump earlier this year.

Susan Necheles

She is one of Trumps lawyers who was on the defense team in the Trump Organization trial.

Robert Costello

Cohens former legal adviser cast aspersions on Cohens credibility before the grand jury.

Karen McDougal

The model is another woman who received hush money for her involvement with Trump.

David Pecker

The former National Enquirer CEO has been linked to Cohens efforts to pay off Daniels and McDougal.

Link:
The data's clear: The indictment makes Republicans like Trump more - POLITICO

Donald Trump, the first former president ever criminally indicted, should not run for the White House again or even testify at his own trial, some fellow Republicans said Sunday.

Trump reportedly faces more than 30 charges in the indictment brought by a Manhattan grand jury last week related to hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election.

He is expected to surrender in Manhattan on Tuesday.

Its a sad day for America that we have a former president thats indicted, said former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said while announcing his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination on ABCs This Week.

He called for Trump to drop out of the presidential race, calling Trumps criminal case too much of a sideshow and distraction.

We dont want the next 18 months to be focused simply on Donald Trump and his legal issues, Hutchinson said. And Donald Trump says a lot of things and they dont always appeal to the best of America.

Describing himself as an evangelical, he added: The evangelical community understands that we need to have a leader that can distance themselves from some of the bad instincts that drive Mr. Trump.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr also took aim at Trumps behavior, suggesting he should not testify in his case because he lacks all self-control.

Generally, I think its a bad idea to go on the stand and I think its a particularly bad idea for Trump because he lacks all self-control, Barr said on Fox News Sunday.

Itd be very difficult to prepare him and keep him testifying in a prudent fashion, said Barr, who served as attorney general in the Trump administration. He broke with Trump over the former presidents claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Barr did say he thinks the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a political prosecution that is pursuing a person rather than pursuing a real crime.

Trump fumed on his social media site when the charges became known that the case is Political Persecution and Election Interference and that this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden.

Story continues

Another former ally of Trump, Chris Christie, shot down what he called the bravado of Trumps response to the indictment.

Hes going to face a criminal trial in Manhattan. Hes not going to be able to avoid that. You cant make that a good day, said the former governor of New Jersey, who is weighing a White House bid himself.

Im pretty certain there has been a lot of heavy talk from the Trump camp, he said, also on ABCs This Week. Yeah, and its ridiculous.

Christie ran unsuccessfully for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

-------

See more here:
Republicans weigh in on Trump indictment, say he should drop out of 2024 race: Its a sad day for America - Yahoo News

The Texas Capitol is pictured here in an undated photo. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Two bills making their way through each chamber of the Texas legislature could impose new oversight and regulation on district attorneys across the state, with several advocates naming Travis County prosecutor Jos Garza as a specific target.

Since the legislative session began, top Republicans have said they want to "rein in" what they call 'rogue DAs' by filing legislation that would obligate them to pursue and prosecute all criminal offenses.

In recent years, some Texas district attorneys, including Garza, have opted not to pursue criminal cases for certain offenses. Perhaps most prominently, several attorneys nationwide signed an open letter, saying they would not pursue criminal charges for abortion-related cases. Some prosecutors have publicly stated they would not pursue charges of low-level thefts or first-time marijuana offenses.

"The legislature and the governor are asserting the primacy of state government, and that is a big change," said James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project an organization based at the University of Texas at Austin working to increase Texans' political engagement.

Two priority bills, Senate Bill 20 and House Bill 17, could pave the way for district attorneys to be removed from office if they don't choose to prosecute all criminal offenses.

"Unfortunately, certain Texas prosecutors have joined a trend of adopting internal policies, refusing to prosecute particular laws," state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-District 17 one of the senate bill's authors said in a Senate committee hearing earlier this month.

This week, the Senate committee voted to move S.B. 20 out of committee, and it could be approved by the full chamber as early as Monday.

H.B. 17, filed by Rep. David Cook, R-District 96, does the same as S.B. 20 and lays out the legal proceedings of removing a district attorney from office would happen through a jury trial. That bill has not yet faced a committee vote.

Several law enforcement advocates and stakeholders spoke in favor of the bill, with many naming the Travis County District Attorney's office as part of the problem.

District attorneys are elected positions and usually have a political party affiliation. That party affiliation has brought scrutiny on a national scale with narratives on both sides of the aisle arguing the criminal justice system is increasingly tied to politics.

Critics of the policies, including the ACLU of Texas, told lawmakers they were concerned forcing district attorneys out of office undermines the will of voters, who democratically elected those prosecutors to office.

More here:
Texas Republicans look to 'rein in' elected attorneys across the state - ABC NEWS 4

Martha Casamayor, center, says Joe Biden "stabbed Cuban Americans in the back" and regrets voting for him. South Florida Latinos like her are key to Republicans expanding their political reach in future elections. Claudia Grisales/NPR hide caption

Martha Casamayor, center, says Joe Biden "stabbed Cuban Americans in the back" and regrets voting for him. South Florida Latinos like her are key to Republicans expanding their political reach in future elections.

Republicans did not see the red wave they were betting on during last year's midterms, so now they're setting their sights on expanding success stories that did break through, such as the big gains they made in South Florida.

The largely conservative Latino community in Miami-Dade County turned red last year for the first time in two decades.

Who are they? The Latino community in South Florida is largely conservative, and includes immigrants from Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

What's the big deal? South Florida marks a community where politics seemingly never sleeps. And it's also where the political ground game for 2024 is already underway.

Want to learn more? Listen to the NPR Politics podcast episode on how Latino GOP voters have embraced the culture war.

What are people saying?

Casamayor on Democrats:

(Biden) stabbed Cuban Americans in the back ... The Biden administration has betrayed the Cuban Americans ... He has betrayed the Cuban Americans who voted for him.

Cooper on hearing from different Republican Election Committees, or REC, asking about the Miami-Dade County model:

We take that message across across the county and soon will take it across the country as we explain to different RECs and different parties how to build their operations.

Mucarsel-Powell on why Democrats shouldn't give up on Florida:

If you care about the environment, you need to care about Florida. If you care about minority groups, if you care about Latinos, you need to care about Florida. And we've been abandoned.

Gamarra on Republican successes in South Florida:

Republicans understand better the idea of the Latino American dream and Democrats still, for the most part, approach Latinos as part of the civil rights struggle in the United States.

So, what now?

Learn more:

Read the original post:
Latino voters in South Florida hold key to Republican political future - NPR

Here are a few of the things the Republican Party is prepared to do to protect children.

The Republican Party in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kentucky is prepared to ban or strictly limit the public performance of drag and other gender-nonconforming behavior.

This bill gives confidence to parents that they can take their kids to a public or private show and will not be blindsided by a sexualized performance, Jack Johnson, the Senate majority leader in Tennessee and one of the sponsors of the states ban, wrote on Twitter.

I cant think of anything good that can come from taking children and putting them in front of a bunch of grown men who are dressed like women, said Gary Stubblefield, an Arkansas state senator who wants to enact a similar ban there.

The Republican Party is prepared to ban or strictly limit discussion of L.G.B.T.Q. people and identities in public schools, as well as transgender health care for minors, to protect them from what they say is manipulation and abuse.

We dont want parents to be abusing their children, said Shay Shelnutt, an Alabama state senator whose bill to restrict teaching and ban care was signed into law last year. We dont want to make that an option, because thats what it is; its child abuse. This is just to protect children.

The Republican Party is prepared to extend this circle of protection to discussions of race and American history in public schools so-called critical race theory to protect students from guilt, shame, discomfort and any other negative emotion. Critical race theory is a divisive ideology that threatens to poison the American psyche, Dan Bishop, a state representative in North Carolina, said when he introduced the Stop CRT Act in 2021. For the sake of our childrens future, we must stop this effort to cancel the truth of our founding and our country.

And the Republican Party is prepared to strictly limit or even ban social media, over concern that platforms like TikTok and Instagram may harm the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. We protect our children from drinking, from smoking, from driving, said Representative Chris Stewart of Utah, who has introduced a bill that would make social media companies legally liable if they fail to keep kids under 16 off their websites and applications. They cant drive when theyre 12. We should protect them from the impacts of social media.

There is a lot, in other words, that the Republican Party is prepared to do to protect children from the world at large. But there are limits. There are lines the Republican Party wont cross.

The Republican Party will not, for example, support universal school lunch to protect children from hunger. When Minnesota Democrats pushed the measure in the most recent session of the states Legislature, for example, one of their Republican colleagues strenuously objected. I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they dont have access to enough food to eat, Steve Drazkowski, a state senator, said. He, like most Republicans in the Legislature, voted against the bill.

In the United States Congress, most Republicans will not support a child allowance to keep children, and their families, out of poverty. On the question of health care, there are 10 states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming where Republicans have refused the Medicaid expansion passed under the Affordable Care Act, depriving millions of Americans, including many children, of access to regular medical care.

And in the wake of yet another school massacre in Nashville, where a shooter killed three adults and three children at a private Christian school Republicans refuse to do anything that might reduce the odds of another shooting or make it less likely that a child dies of gun violence.

There isnt anybody here that, if they could find the right approach, wouldnt try to do something because they feel that pain, said Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota in an interview with CNNs Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday. And yet when we start talking about bans or challenging on the Second Amendment, I think the things that have already been done have gone about as far as were going to with gun control.

Its a horrible, horrible situation, said Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who represents the district in question. And were not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals.

In 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms were the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States.

When you put all of this together, the picture is clear. The Republican Party will use the law and the state to shield as many children as possible from the knowledge, cultural influences and technologies deemed divisive or controversial or subversive by the voters, activists and apparatchiks that shape and guide its priorities. When Tucker Carlson, Christopher Rufo and Moms for Liberty say jump, their only question is: How high?

But when it comes to actual threats to the lives of American children from poverty, from hunger, from sickness and from guns then, well, the Republican Party wants us to slow down and consider the costs and consequences and even possible futility of taking any action to help.

On Tuesday, I wrote about the fundamental deception behind the slogan parents rights. What sounds like due consideration for parents as the most important adults in the lives of most children is in fact a rallying cry for a subset of the most conservative and reactionary parents, who want a state-sanctioned hecklers veto over the education of all the children in the community. It is a Trojan horse for the slow destruction of public schools.

Something similar is true of the constant calls to protect children. The way they talk about them, these children are not real, living, vulnerable kids. They are a symbol, and the calls to protect them are an excuse, a pretext for wielding the state against the perceived cultural enemies of the American right. These champions of children arent all that interested in young people as citizens with rights and entitlements of their own.

The dark irony in all this is that as the Republican Party turns the idea of the children against gay people as well as trans and other gender-nonconforming Americans, it becomes more likely that actual kids will try to harm themselves, out of fear or despair or a sense of isolation or all of the above.

Not all children, it seems, are worthy of protection.

See the original post here:
Opinion | The Republican Party Says It Wants to Protect Children ... - The New York Times