Whether or not former President Donald Trump is in fact arrested Tuesday or later, apprehension by law enforcement will not substantially impact his support among the Republican faithful, according to a pollster.
“Voters have very well formed opinions of Donald Trump,” John Cluverius, a professor of political science at UMass Lowell and the director of survey research at their Center for Public Opinion, told the Boston Herald on Monday. “I don’t think there are any Republicans who will like Trump less or more because he’s been indicted.”
The 45th President of the United States took to his Truth Social Media platform early Saturday to inform followers he would be arrested on charges brought against him by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, following allegations he made a hush-money payment to a porn star mistress ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump has offered a number of reasons for the payment, disclosure of which eventually sent former attorney Michael Cohen to prison, most recently seeming to imply it was made in response to an extortion plot hatched against him in the waning days of his first presidential bid.
“With no crime being able to be proven, & based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far & away leading republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back,” Trump wrote in all caps.
According to Cluverius, while the move by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to bring charges against a former president may be unprecedented, an arrest won’t actually shift the political narrative despite its historical context.
People already know everything there is to know about Trump, far more than they’ve ever known about any presidential candidate, Cluverius said, and so an arrest won’t make liberals like him less or shake the MAGA faithful.
“The question is how the legal entanglement will restrict the conduct of his political campaign,” Cluverius said.
Trump, if arrested as he predicts will be the case, will have to appear in New York, first for initial processing, but then several more times as the legal battle plays out. His movement, Cluverius said, could be restricted by the court and therefore prevent him from holding the rallies and large-scale campaign events for which he’s so famous.
“As someone who thrives on large rallies and in-person events, I think this has a lot of potential to disrupt the flow of Trump’s will to campaign,” he said.
It may also, according to the professor, signal to other Republicans that there is blood in the water.
“I think there will be potential candidates booking Sunday shows a week from yesterday,” he said.
According to polling, Trump is the clear front-runner in the Republican primary contest, though few other candidates have entered the race.
On Monday, the New York City Police Department began the process of surrounding the Manhattan DA’s office and Criminal Court with metal barricades in preparation for protests called for by Trump and in response to his apparently impending arrest.
Also on Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-KY, and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI) sent a joint letter to Bragg, writing he was “reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office.”
“If these reports are accurate, your actions will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the course of the 2024 presidential election. In light of the serious consequences of your actions, we expect that you will testify about what plainly appears to be a politically motivated prosecutorial decision,” the Chairman wrote, in part.
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