Trump increases Republican primary lead despite swirling legal peril

 

Trump increases Republican primary lead despite swirling legal peril

 

Latest poll puts ex-president at 54% with closest challenger Ron DeSantis – whose campaign appears to be sputtering out – on 17%

 

Martin Pengelly in Washington

@MartinPengelly

Mon 31 Jul 2023 18.13 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/31/trumps-republican-primary-lead-poll-increases

 

Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.

 

Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.

 

Yet a month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.

 

On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.

 

DeSantis’s hard-right campaign is widely seen to be out of fuel and on a glide path to destruction. Trump dominates early voting states and in national averages leads the Florida governor by more than 30 points.

 

Heading for trials in primary season, Trump denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. But his chaos-agent campaign, which he has said he will not abandon even if convicted and sentenced, does not just threaten the national peace. It threatens his own party.

 

Trump is demanding Republican support for impeaching Joe Biden over corruption allegations against Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.

 

“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

 

Republicans hold the US House, where impeachment would start, by just five seats. GOP members in Democratic areas seem likely to suffer at the polls next year.

 

“If they’re not willing to do it,” Trump said, “we’ve got a lot of good, tough Republicans around. People are going to run against ’em, and people are going to win. And they’re going to get my endorsement every single time. They’re going to win ’cause we win almost every race when we endorse.”

 

Factcheckers dispute that. Surveying the 2022 midterms, the New York Times said: “Mr Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates, and his 82% success rate is, on the surface, impressive. But the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win.”

 

 

The paper added: “In the 36 most competitive House races … Mr Trump endorsed candidates in five contests. All five lost.”

 

Trump’s influence on key Senate races won by Democrats has been widely discussed.

 

In Pennsylvania, Trump also called for conditioning aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia on White House cooperation with investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump’s own first impeachment was for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to uncover dirt on the Bidens. Pundits noted the irony.

 

“So much for denying the quid pro quo, as he did in 2019,” said Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House correspondent.

 

Trump supporters at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Trump supporters at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Photograph: Lindsay Dedario/Reuters

In that impeachment, Trump was acquitted when Republican senators stayed loyal, Mitt Romney of Utah the sole GOP vote to convict.

 

Trump beat his second impeachment, for inciting the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, despite 10 House Republicans and seven senators voting to convict.

 

Thousands have been arrested over the Capitol attack and hundreds convicted, some of seditious conspiracy. Smith, the special counsel, is homing in on indictments regarding Trump’s election subversion, though as the Guardian revealed, likely charges do not directly relate to January 6.

 

In Fulton county, Willis, the district attorney, seems confident of winning convictions over attempts to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia.

 

Speaking to WXIA, a CNN affiliate, she said: “I made a commitment to the American people – but most importantly the citizens of Fulton county – that we were going to be making some big decisions regarding the election investigation and that I would do that before 1 September 2023. I’m going to hold true to that commitment.

 

“The work is accomplished. We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

 

Previous Trump indictments in New York and Washington have not fueled significant protests or violence. But in Atlanta, barriers surround the Fulton courthouse.

 

“I think the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis said. “I’m not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm’s way.”

 

In Georgia on Monday, a judge rejected Trump lawyers’ attempt to block use of a grand jury report in prosecutions and remove Willis from the case. In Florida, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate, made his first court appearance in the classified records case. He did not enter a formal plea.

 

In general election polling, Biden and Trump are closely matched.

 

On Sunday, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a rank Republican outsider, told CBS it was “inappropriate” to float a pardon for Trump, as other candidates, DeSantis included, have done.

 

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer who went to jail then turned on Trump, told MSNBC Trump’s likely nomination posed a genuine threat to the nation.

 

“I’m your retribution,” Cohen said, quoting Trump’s message to supporters. “They’re indicting me, I’m protecting you, I’m the only one between you and them.

 

“It’s right out of Mein Kampf, which allegedly Donald used to keep on his bedside table.”

 

In 1990, Vanity Fair said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. Trump told the magazine it was Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. The friend who gave Trump the book said it was the speeches.

 

Cohen continued: “This is not a joke. And to anybody who thinks for a quick second there’s no way he’s going to win, that was a pretty packed audience in Erie, Pennsylvania.”