In new polling conducted amid a partnership between the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago, 70 percent of overall respondents said they do not want Donald Trump to run for another term as president — which he is, of course, now doing.
That portion of the total includes, as could be expected, most Democrats, along with 63 percent of independents and even 44 percent of Republicans. These numbers suggest, of course, that if Trump makes it to the general election ballot in 2024, it won’t be because Americans actually like him or maybe even take him particularly seriously in large numbers, although his most fervent supporters remain, of course, rather loud. Instead, it’s the weight of partisan affiliation likely driving his success, or at least providing the ex-president with a rhetorical jumping-off point.
Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who’s generally considered the most likely primary contender against Trump whose potential campaign could even really get anywhere, is so off-putting in his own right that perhaps the baked-in party-based affinity for Trump arising from that he already held the White House once helps.
The same set of polling also found many Americans believe Trump to have committed illegal acts, including a majority who said so in the context of his meddling with the handling of the presidential election results in 2020 in Georgia, where Biden nabbed a win. In Georgia, the investigation by local prosecutor Fani Willis into that situation is continuing, with criminal charges still possible. She recently said in a court filing that at least one individual who’d participated as a sham elector for Trump after that last election implicated at least one other from the same group in possibly illegal acts, though she didn’t specify the actions that were at issue.