With the U.S. having now changed the calendar to the year in which the next president will be decided, a majority of respondents in a new polling effort still express approval for high-profile criminal charges that Donald Trump is facing across multiple cases at both the state and federal levels. The allegations cover both his attempts to stay in power after the last presidential election despite losing and his handling of classified documents from his time in office, a significant cache of which were recovered from his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago.
In the new polling, which was conducted by Ipsos in association with ABC News, 56 percent expressed support for the charges, and only 39 percent said they were in opposition. Those “strongly” in support of the charges were the better part of two times greater than those “strongly” in opposition, with the first group at 41 percent and the second reaching just 24 percent.
One of Trump’s efforts against the charges mostly failed this week with a decision by federal Judge Tanya Chutkan against potentially holding Special Counsel Jack Smith in contempt for producing case filings amid a delay on proceedings at the trial level. The judge concluded that the prosecutors had not clearly violated her own prior order outlining the pause, which accompanies Trump taking arguments of extremely wide-ranging presidential immunity higher up in the federal judiciary. Chutkan did, however, institute a framework for greater clarity in the handling of any further substantive motions ahead of trial, demanding that her permission be obtained before making any such individual motions going forward.
Also, measures relating to maintaining the status quo remain active. That list would include establishments of protections for prospective jurors and restrictions — largely upheld by a higher court — on statements that Trump can make amid the case. He has repeatedly faced concerns that his nearly endless antagonism could produce further threats of violence against his political opponents with his allegedly knowing culpability.
