Donald Trump’s many, many attempts to undercut the public image of the multiple criminal investigations that he has faced and is facing aren’t necessarily working.
New polling from YouGov in association with The Economist that was completed August 8 found nearly half the country approving of the recent indictment that outlines criminal allegations against Trump related to his attempts to stay in power after the last presidential race. From the total, 39 percent said they strongly approved, while an additional 10 percent said they somewhat approved. Those who disapproved at either level of intensity only reached a combined 38 percent of the overall total.
Trump’s indictment includes charges like conspiracy to defraud the United States, and, though Republican defenders of the ex-president and Trump himself have sometimes referred to the matter as a free speech case, it’s not specifically his many assertions that he actually won the 2020 election that are at issue. Rather, Trump is facing criminal charges for the allegedly criminal steps he took to execute a conspiracy to upend the routine process of the transfer of power.
In the polling, registered voters who approved at either level of intensity of the new indictment against Trump reached a combined total of 51 percent. Findings on similar questions asked of cross-sections of the American public have repeatedly been similar.
Relatedly, Trump’s repeated — and characteristic — statements that he is actually soaring in the relevant polling from the 2024 presidential election in which he’s running are also not accurate. A significant collection of polling data has already emerged showing Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden relatively close in the anticipated rematch of the 2020 election potentially coming next year. On neither side have primary campaigns taken off in polling or other relevant campaign metrics.
Now, Trump faces the possibility of a fourth indictment in coming days, this time in Georgia. That investigation has similarly been oriented around attempts by Trump and allies of his to secure another four years in office for the then-outgoing president despite his loss. Trump, clearly desperate, has recently been promoting an utterly baseless conspiracy theory that the local district attorney may have had a romantic relationship with a member of an allegedly criminal gang she’s targeting in another prosecution.
