Polling is clear: Trump’s arrest hurt his re-election chances

More people are taking the charges against the former president seriously

Election 2024 Trump (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In the days leading up to former president Donald Trump’s arraignment and arrest, plenty of Republican politicians from Senator Marco Rubio to right-wing Twitter owner Elon Musk all said a potential indictment would guarantee him a victory in 2024.

I had my reservations at the time and believed that most people’s statements were rooted more in how he still managed to win despite his baggage. None of the times Mr Trump went under heavy scrutiny led to concrete legal implications the way an indictment would.

Now, data exist to show how people feel about Trump’s arrest and arraignment: A new ABC News/Ipsos poll found that Mr Trump’s favourability rating dipped from 29 per cent 31 March and 1 April to 25 per cent between 6 April and 7 April. Moreover, his unfavourable numbers climbed from 55 per cent to 61 per cent.

The numbers show that people seeing Mr Trump in a courtroom in Manhattan, or at least seeing recaps, likely had an impact. In almost every question, more people viewed Mr Trump in a negative light according to the poll.

Case in point, the number of people who said the charges against Mr Trump were “very serious” jumped from 24 per cent to 30 per cent, though the number of adults who said the charges were “somewhat serious” dropped from 26 per cent to 22 per cent, which seems to indicate that the people who had concerns took the charges more seriously.

Conversely, the number of people who said they were “not too serious” moved only one point from 15 per cent to 16 per cent. Similarly, the number of adults who said they thought the charges were “not serious at all” jumped from 20 per cent to 24 per cent.

The parallel increase in people who saw the charges as “very serious” and “not serious at all” likely signals that most people didn’t change their opinion on Mr Trump much, so much as they changed the intensity of their opinion.

At the same time, the number of adults who thought Mr Trump should have been charged with a crime increased from 45 per cent to 50 per cent and 53 per cent said he did something intentionally illegal.

Though in a sign of how people can hold contradictory views, the number of adults who said the charges were politically motivated rose from 47 per cent to 50 per cent. The number of people who said he should suspend his campaign increased from 43 per cent to 48 per cent.

Of course, every poll has important caveats. This is obviously only one survey and it only surveyed 566 people. Other polls will inevitably be released soon and the 2024 presidential election is still a year and a half away. This also doesn’t even take into account whether Mr Trump will win the Republican presidential primary.

But it does signal trouble for Republicans: If Republican primary voters expect them to throw their weight behind the former president and defend him vigorously against these charges, however politicised voters might think they are, that could risk alienating them with the voters they need come November.