Former President Donald Trump said in a social media post he’s been informed by special counsel Jack Smith that he is a target of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a sign he may soon be charged by the special counsel....Ed Kilgore states the obvious: This is highly unlikely to hurt Trump in the primaries.
Trump’s attorneys ... received the target letter from Smith’s team Sunday informing them that their client could face charges in the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election....
I suppose it’s possible this indictment will be the straw that broke the camel’s back with a critical accretion to Trump’s “baggage.” But to credit that possibility we’d need to see some evidence that rank-and-file Republicans — not just anonymously sourced Beltway elites who have wanted to get rid of Trump from the get-go — are tired of him....However, Kilgore continues:
But at this point, the most likely damage to Trump stemming from his legal peril and the evidence of his misconduct is to his strength as a general-election candidate.Yes, there should be that kind of damage. Isn't the general consensus that Trump can't possibly win, or can't win a two-person race, because of his obvious repulsiveness and ever-accumulating legal baggage? But evidence of that hasn't shown up in the polls. Trump was indicted in New York on April 4 and in Florida on June 13. The last Economist/YouGov poll of a Trump-Biden race taken before the indictments was in January, and Biden was up by 4. The same pollsters conducted a survey April 1 through April 4, and Trump was up by 2. The margins since then: Trump +1, Trump +1, tie, Trump +2, Biden +3, tie, Trump +4, tie. All the surveys are in the same narrow range, and Trump is clearly competitive. The same is true for Quinnipiac. In late March, Biden led by 2 in Quinnipiac's polling. After the indictment's Biden lead hasn't really increased -- it's switched between 2 and 4 in several polls.
If the ever-accumulating Trump indictments were turning off less committed Trump voters, you'd think Biden's lead would be steadily increasing. It isn't. In at least one poll (Harvard/Harris), Trump's lead is increasing slightly. It was 4 just before the first indictment, and since then it's been 5, 7, and 6.
I'm regularly told that widespread disgust with Trump makes him unelectable. Will that disgust finally manifest itself in general-election polling after this indictment? Because if not, we have to ask whether it will ever show up at all.
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