After An Eventful Month, Trump Has Lost Support In The GOP Primary

Once again, with the feeling: that has been a few weeks since the last indictment of former president Donald Trump (this time in Georgia, as part of his efforts to overthrow the 2020 elections). Do accusations seem to have affected his chances of returning to the White House?

After each of Trump’s three anterior accusation acts, his survey numbers have changed in incoherent small ways – if they have changed. The fourth indictment followed this non -mobile scheme: some evidence suggests that it has gained ground in republican primary, other proofs suggest that it has lost it and what small data of general elections that we have suggested that nothing has changed significantly. And, adding to the frustration of political drug addicts everywhere, it is very difficult to understand how the fourth indictment affected Trump’s position in the race given the proximity of two other major events on the campaign track: the third act of indictment and the presidential debate of the GOP.

Let’s take a more in -depth glance on the national polls in republican primary. There were 29 completed after the news of the fourth indictment broke out late in the evening on August 14, and Trump went from 53% in our average survey to 50% since then. But the accusation act in Georgia came in the heels of another large set of accusations: on August 1, Trump was charged by a great federal jury, also for having pretended to interfere with the elections of 2020. And only five combinations of pollsters and sponsors carried out polls both in the period between the two accusation acts (August 1 and August 14) and after that of Georgia (since August 14).

“>² This is important because, although we can theoretically compare, for example, the investigation from August 16 to 17 of the Emerson College to its investigation from June 19 to 20, it would be impossible to say that the decrease of Trump at 3 percentage points is due to the act of indictment in Georgia. This could have been due to the third indictment, or to any other combination of events occurring during these two months.

Then, to make things even more complicated, only two of these pollsters wrapped their post-pricing survey before the republican presidential debate on August 23, which could also have changed sight of Trump. And these two do not agree that the race changed after the indictment. According to Morning Consult, Trump’s national support among potential primary voters has barely moved, from 57% to 58%. But according to Premises, Trump actually increased his number among republican registered voters during this period, from 54% to 60%.

This is not what we see when we examine the average support of Trump, which has decreased – but it can be linked to the debate, to which Trump refused to attend. According to three pairs of surveys

“>⁴ The first half of which was put into service after the indictment, but before the debate and the second half of which was put into service after the debate, Trump’s national support dropped on average by 4 points. In addition, a Fivethirtyeight / Washington Post / Ipsos survey was led using Ipsos KnowledgePanel revealed that 5% of probable republican voters who watched the debate were planning to vote for Trump before him, but not after that, which made him the only candidate to lose important potential support.

It also does not seem that the fourth indictment has changed many spirits among the general electorate. The morning consultation and premise were again the only two pollsters to ask questions about a hypothetical match of general elections between Trump and President Biden during our windows of interest (August 1 to 14 for the front survey, from August 15 to 23 for the survey after the survey). According to the premise, the registered voters preferred Trump to Biden of 4 points before the indictment and 5 points after him – not a statistically significant change. And according to Morning Consult, the results were the same (Biden 43%, Trump 41%) before and after the indictment in Georgia.

Another survey / sponsor couple – Ipsos / ABC News – asked Trump’s favorable and unfavorable comprehensive and unfavorable notes before and after the indictment. In their survey from August 2 to 3, 30% of American adults considered it favorably and 59% considered it unfavorably. And in their survey from August 15 to 16, 31% considered it favorably and 55% considered it unfavorably. It seems to be an improvement, but it was in the margin of error of the survey, so it could simply be noise.

Admittedly, the three meager surveys carried out 15 months before the elections are not the last word on the fate of Trump before the court of public opinion. The case against Trump in Georgia (really, all his accusation) could hurt or help him more over time, especially if he is condemned or acquitted before the elections. It is also possible that this whole exercise is defective, since the “before” polls in this analysis all came within two weeks of Trump’s third act; Perhaps Trump’s survey numbers during this period were already depressed because of these (similar) allegations.

But looking at the situation as a whole – including the medium of Fivethirtyeight of the national republican primary and favorable and unfavorable global notes of Trump – it is clear that public opinion on Trump has not changed majorly in several months, even after having been charged with nearly 100 criminal accusations in four different jurisdictions. After what should be his final indictment, he remains the favorite strong of the GOP primary and a competitive candidate in the general elections.

Correction (August 31, 2023, 8:37 a.m.): An earlier version of this article said that the support of former President Donald Trump in our national republican primary poll was 50% when the news of his indictment in Georgia broke on August 14. In fact, it was 53%.