Trump surging with Republican voters, sinking with Americans

Former President Donald Trump has seen his support swell among Republican primary voters after his indictment last month by a Manhattan grand jury, but his favorability among Americans overall remains underwater — even below that of the unpopular President Biden.

Trump, 76, was indicted March 30 by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony counts stemming from a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

But Trump gave his followers a heads-up about the looming charges in a Truth Social posting on March 18. 

Polls taken since then have found that Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, expected to be his main 2024 Republican primary rival.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the indictment found Trump leading DeSantis by 58% to 21% among Republican voters, a gain of 10 percentage points from a week earlier. 

A Yahoo News/YouGov survey taken March 30-31 found that Trump held a 57% to 31% advantage over DeSantis among Republican voters, building on an eight-point lead just two weeks before.

But while Trump is riding a wave of support from Republican primary voters, he’s struggling to gain a foothold with the American public.  

An ABC News/Ipsos poll, in the field April 6 and 7, showed that Trump’s unfavorable rating climbed to 61% from 55% a week prior. The former president’s favorability rating sank to 25% from 29% in that period.

In the same poll, 80-year-old Biden’s unfavorable rating fell slightly from 49% to 48% and his favorability rating rose to 34% from 32%.

An Economist/YouGov survey that polled Americans April 1-4 found that Trump had a 51% to 44% unfavorable to favorable rating, while Biden’s spread was 49% unfavorable and 45% favorable.

Those polls track with surveys dating from before the indictment.  

A Quinnipiac University poll released March 15 put Trump’s unfavorable rating at 58% among registered voters, compared to 36% favorable. 

Biden’s numbers in the same survey were 54% unfavorable, 40% favorable.

According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the field between March 12 and April 11, Trump’s favorability was at 38.4%, trailing Biden’s 42.1% favorability. The average unfavorable rating told a similar story, with Biden at 52.4% and Trump on 55.8%.

While Trump announced Nov. 15 that he would mount a third bid for the White House in 2024, Biden has signaled that he will run for re-election but has yet to make it official. 

And while Trump already has a number of Republican rivals who have announced, including former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Biden has no serious primary challengers at the moment. 

Other Republicans — from former Vice President Mike Pence to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to DeSantis — are expected to join the fray soon.

But Trump’s indictment has seized the headlines and effectively taken the wind out of the sails of his rivals, with most of them remaining silent over fears that any negative comments could turn Trump’s substantial base against them.

Meanwhile, the indictment has energized some of the former president’s allies in Congress who have set their sights on the Manhattan DA and his prosecution of a leading Republican presidential contender. 

Even DeSantis responded to Trump’s indictment by refraining from criticizing his likely political foe but asserting that he wouldn’t cooperate in the extradition process from Florida if asked. 

Aside from the Manhattan case, Trump is being investigated by special counsel Jack Smith over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and the mishandling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is probing Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the Peach State. 

Some Republicans fear that the weight of the investigations and the constant drumbeat of allegations could weaken Trump politically, leading to a repeat of the 2020 election result. 

“Republican voters are capable of holding two thoughts in their heads at once,” Patrick Ruffini, a GOP pollster, told FiveThirtyEight. 

“The first is: We like Trump, and we like how he fights. But is he so compromised that he risks losing even to a weakened and unpopular Joe Biden? The case that DeSantis or anyone with a successful electoral track record can make is that, ‘Look, there isn’t going to be a huge difference with Trump on policy. The difference is: I win, he loses,’” he added, before noting: “Republican voters aren’t thinking this way just yet.”