A new poll from CBS News and pollster YouGov shows pretty convincingly that the most recent spate of Trump indictments ahead of what passes as a GOP presidential candidate debate this week has only served to lock in loyalty from his cultists months before a single primary or caucus vote is cast.
Well, there's no debate about this: Right now, the Republican Party would easily re-nominate Donald Trump for 2024. And it's not close.
The former president now holds his largest lead over his rivals in our polling amid his recent legal troubles. In fact, most of his voters cite those troubles as yet one more reason to show him support.
His nearest — but not too near — rival Ron DeSantis has fallen even further back. Everyone else is in single digits.
Trump voters' affinity for him seems to insulate the former president from attacks whether or not he debates this week, because voters basically say they aren't receptive to such criticism.
Instead, a whopping nine in 10 GOP primary voters want the other candidates to focus on making the case for themselves, but not against Trump.
(In interviews conducted before there were reports that Trump has decided to skip the debate, his voters were likelier than others to both say he should participate in the event and that they intend to watch.)
First, as was the case with Trump's previous indictments, Republican primary voters' overwhelming concern about the Georgia charges is that they're politically motivated.
They dismiss the premise of the charges: the bulk of them do think Trump tried to stay in office, but to them, it was legal and constitutional because these Republican primary voters overwhelmingly think Joe Biden didn't win legitimately.
There may be a rally effect: a sizable three-quarters of Trump's voters include those who "show support for his legal troubles" as one rationale, among others, for considering him in the first place.
Second, information in the indictments doesn't have an impact, in part, because they generally believe it's Trump who tells them the truth.
Trump far and away leads the GOP field among voters who place top importance on a candidate being "honest and trustworthy."
The context here is that Republican primary voters believe the political system is corrupt at an even higher rate than Americans overall do. That could mean perceiving Trump as railing against — or prosecuted by — that system might well make him seem, from their perspective, like the one telling a larger truth.
More generally, Trump's voters hold him as a source of true information, even more so than other sources, including conservative media figures, religious leaders, and even their own friends and family.
Fourth, Trump "checks the boxes" across all the ways voters generally make choices.
His track record shows that those considering him almost all think things were better in the country under his presidency. And the vast majority say they've "always been a supporter." Together, these appear to contribute to a powerful "incumbency advantage" for Trump.
It could be strategic: Republican voters think Trump has the best shot to beat Biden — remember, many think he already did. And that's really important to them, outweighing even some disagreements on policy. (Of note: Ron DeSantis has fallen on this electability measure since earlier in the summer, along with his support.)
There's also Trump's personal connection: Almost all his voters say he "fights for people like me."
And then, in particular, a large majority of primary voters would want a candidate similar to Trump, if it were not him. So, they're picking the original, as it were.
Trump has a nearly 50 point lead over second-place DeSantis, 62-16, among likely primary voters. More than three-quarters believe the Trump indictments are political, 73% say showing support for Trump's legal fights is a reason to consider supporting him, and a whopping 99% of Trump supporters believe everything was better when Trump was in the Oval Office, with 95% believing Trump will fight for "people like me." Some 61% of GOP primary voters say Trump is trustworthy and honest, with 71% of Trump supporters saying they believe him over any other source.
As I've said for years now, it's a cult, and deprogramming the tens of millions of white supremacist domestic terrorist cultists in our midst who expect Trump will exact bloody revenge on the rest of us will be the work of a lifetime. When Trump gives his cult permission to enact violence in his name in more than just a stochastic or implied manner, that's when America burns, and my fear is that this day is coming sooner rather than later.
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