After weeks of speculation, a grand jury reportedly voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump in connection to hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels, though the particular criminal charges are not yet known. Trump has spent weeks signaling that he thinks the indictment, the first levied against a former president, will benefit him politically — so much so that he reportedly wanted to be seen in handcuffs. But it’s not clear he’s right.
Trump’s indictment, if confirmed, could strengthen support among the Republican base for his 2024 reelection campaign. But it could also turn off voters who have come to see Trump as a liability given his refusal to accept his 2020 election loss, the resulting fallout of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, and the bevy of additional criminal and civil investigations he’s facing. Those include probes into his business dealings, interference in the 2020 election in Georgia, withholding of classified documents after he left office, and his role in inciting the insurrection, which could lead to additional indictments.
Even if an indictment earns him votes over his Republican Party challengers in the primary, it’s unclear whether the same would be true in the general election. The news that it might be imminent had already splintered his own party, with some of his political opponents, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, invoking it in their lines of attack; others had rushed to the former president’s defense in the face of what they frame as a politically motivated case.
We spoke with pollsters and political strategists from both parties before the news of the indictment dropped about what they think it could mean in the months ahead.
The case that an indictment may help Trump
Robert Cahaly, senior strategist and pollster at the Trafalgar Group and former Republican political consultant:
With all the stuff that’s out there brewing that could turn into some kind of…
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