Views of Donald Trump and his criminal case are divided along partisan lines in the United States, even as the former U.S. president retains strong support among Republican voters, a new poll shows.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday was conducted ahead of charges against Trump in Georgia this week.
The findings found that 53 percent of Americans support an earlier federal indictment against Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
According to the poll, 85 percent of Democrats support the criminal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in early August, compared with 47 percent of independents and 16 percent of Republicans.
All told, three in 10 Americans disapprove, including about two-thirds of Republicans.
But Trump remains the clear frontrunner among the 2024 Republican presidential contenders, the latest poll shows, and the indictment he faces doesn’t change that, and he denies being involved in all four criminal charges against him. There was misconduct in the case.
What does the latest indictment mean for Donald Trump?
Georgia prosecutors announced a fourth indictment late Monday accusing Trump and 18 co-defendants of conspiring to “unlawfully alter” the state’s 2020 ballot results.
It is the second accusation so far this year that Trump meddled in the election. In early August, he pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to his overturning of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by President Joe Biden.
Trump was also indicted in New York in March over hush money payments to porn stars, and he faces federal charges in Florida for allegedly mishandling secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago.
But the former Republican president rejected the case against him, calling it a “witch hunt” designed to undermine his re-election bid. The claim was endorsed by his most ardent supporters.
“Trump is clearly running for president and the current administration is pushing to arrest their political opponents and put them in jail,” Cary Arnold, a 56-year-old Republican from Eldersburg, Maryland, told the Associated Press.
“Just on paper, it’s a very, very bad situation. It’s what you would expect to see in a third world country run by a dictator,” he said, adding that he did not believe Trump’s behavior beyond the bounds of criminal charges.
Arnold said, “I didn’t see anything that seemed illegal. I know some people said that he did things illegal, but what they said didn’t make any sense.”
What are the four criminal cases against Donald Trump? (Al Jazeera)
Even some of the former president’s Republican rivals have come forward in his defense.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s biggest challenger to the Republican nomination, told reporters Tuesday about the Georgia case, “I think it’s an example of a political crime.”
“I don’t think it’s good for the country,” DeSantis said.
Wednesday’s poll was conducted Aug. 10-14, just before Georgia announced the charges. The survey found that 35 percent of Americans generally have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 62 percent have a negative opinion of him.
However, seven in 10 Republicans have a favorable opinion of the former president, with about six in 10 saying they want him to run for the White House again.
The poll also found that 51 percent of U.S. adults believe Trump acted illegally in the Georgia case, which looms for weeks before an indictment is formally announced. Broken down by party, 85 percent of Democrats think his actions are illegal, compared with 16 percent of Republicans.
Meanwhile, Americans say Trump’s actions after the 2020 presidential election are more likely to threaten democracy than defend it (54% vs. 19%).
Republicans were divided on the impact of Trump’s decisions, with 43 percent saying he defends democracy and 23 percent saying he threatens it, while about a third of Republicans said he neither defends nor threatens democracy.
David Bigger, a 60-year-old Republican from Navarra, Fla., who voted against Trump twice, told The Associated Press that “Trump and many of his supporters say, ‘They’re just using this to make money in the Trump administration. attack him in the election’.”
“I think he was targeted because he did something that deserves a trial.”
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2023-08-16 15:27:32
