Federal criminal charges against Donald Trump have done little to change Americans’ opinion of the former president, based on a new Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday that shows he retains a dominant lead in the race. for the Republican presidential nomination.
The poll, which began on Friday, the day after Trump announced he had been indicted, found that 62% of respondents, including 91% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans, said it was credible that Trump had stored confidential documents. illegally in his home in Florida.
But 81% of Republicans said the accusations against him were politically motivated.
The news did not appear to hurt Trump’s standing in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election. The specific charges, including obstruction of justice, became public on Friday afternoon when the indictment was unveiled.
About 43% of self-styled Republicans said Trump was their preferred candidate, compared with 22% who chose Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
In early May, Trump led DeSantis 49% to 19%, but that was before DeSantis formally entered the race.
The rest of the Republican field, which includes former Vice President Mike Pence, who declared his candidacy last week, had high single-digit support levels.
Trump flew to Miami on Monday to face federal charges of illegally hoarding U.S. national security documents and lying to authorities who tried to retrieve them. He declared his innocence and promised to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in the November 2024 elections.
He is the first former or current president to face criminal charges, but legal experts say that doesn’t stop him from running for president — or taking office even if found guilty.
Republican officials, including many rivals for the party’s nomination, said the accusations against Trump smacked of hypocrisy, citing classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s Delaware home.
It is unclear whether Biden, a Democrat, will face legal action. Biden’s approval rating stood at 41% last week, close to the lowest level of his term. Trump had a 40% approval rating at this point in his 2017-2021 administration.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 20% of Republicans thought Biden and Trump were being treated fairly, compared with 77% of Democrats.
The survey included responses from 1,005 adults across the country and had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 4 percentage points for all voting-age Americans and between 6 and 7 percentage points for Republicans.
Source: CNN Brasil
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