Many Americans say Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race after recently facing a third criminal case. The most recent charges relate to his attempt after the 2020 election to stay in power despite losing the race in a well-documented defeat by President Joe Biden.
In new polling from Ipsos done in collaboration with ABC News and stretching from August 2 to 3, 49 percent of overall respondents said Trump should abandon his latest bid for president because of the latest allegations. Those who said the opposite only reached 36 percent, with 15 percent saying they didn’t know. Across related questions, the results were similar. Asked about their perceptions of the seriousness of the allegations that Trump is newly facing, only 25 percent said they thought the case was either not too serious or not serious at all. And asked whether they believe that the former president should have been charged with a crime at all in this matter, a simple majority — reaching 52 percent of the total — was in favor.
These statistics evince a failure of Trump’s consistent messaging around the charges he is facing, assuming an intention by the former president for extensive support. Despite the many charges with which Trump has been hit, he remains the front-runner in the race for the Republican Party’s nomination for president, leading challenger Ron DeSantis and others by huge numbers. The first debate in that contest is scheduled to be held this month. It will follow a precipitous decline for DeSantis across the relevant polling data amid continuing criticism in his home state for pursuits of his administration like the new educational standards under which middle school students will be told that individuals suffering through U.S. slavery benefited through developing actionable skills.
Though Trump characteristically claims to maintain a pronounced lead over all relevant challengers for both the primary and general election, surveys on a match-up between Trump and Biden that would take place next fall actually show the two consistently close.
