The former president has insulated himself with his party, having sold its members over the past seven years on his baseless narrative of a deep-state conspiracy against him.
With each passing indictment of former President Donald Trump — up to four now in less than five months — its seems he’s only solidified his grip on the Republican Party.
Trump is the far-and-away front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination again and has raised gobs of money off of the legal developments. About half of Republican voters seem nearly locked in for Trump and believe his baseless narrative of deep-state conspiracies against him.
At this point, with a fourth indictment that came out of Georgia on Monday night, stemming from his and allies’ attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state, plus ones in New York and two at the federal level, the GOP base appears to believe the conspiracy is pretty far and wide.
Few of Trump’s Republican primary opponents are criticizing him on the charges, and the GOP officials who do are turned into political pariahs.
But what explains this? And is this “nothing matters” narrative actually something of a mirage — at least with the broader electorate?
Let’s dig in.A repelling effect with independents
First, let’s start out with the fact that the indictments have mattered politically.
With most Americans, Trump remains highly unpopular.
His favorability rating, on average, is only about 40%. With independents, he’s in the 30s in the latest polling.
And Trump has had a repelling effect with independent voters, who lean toward one party or the other and often decide the outcome of elections.
More than half of independents — 52% — said they think Trump has done something illegal, the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found. That’s up 11 points since March, just before the first indictment in New York was released related to Trump’s hush-money payments to women he was alleged to have had affairs with.
Remember, that change comes after Trump’s brand hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats won independents in the midterm elections by 2 points, according to exit polls, which led to Republicans winning a smaller-than-expected majority in the House, and Democrats picking up a seat in the Senate.
That result defied the history of how the party out of power usually performs in midterm elections. For example, when Trump was president, Democrats won independents by 12 points in 2018. Republicans, on the other hand, won them by double digits in the midterms during Obama’s presidency.
In both 2016 and 2020, Trump got less than 47% of the vote — 45.9% in 2016 and 46.8% in 2020. That was before Jan. 6 and these multiple indictments.
Trump has done very little to expand beyond his base in the years since, and his toxicity with independents makes it hard to see his path to winning back the White House in 2024 — without a little help from a potential third-party bid. (More on that below.)Now, where it hasn’t moved the needle is with Republicans
Republicans are living in a different universe than Democrats or independents when it comes to Trump.
Trump has insulated himself with many Republicans with his cries of witch hunts, political targeting and a healthy dose of whataboutism complaints of double standards.
After the 2020 election results were in, and his campaign manager and other high-ranking officials in his administration were telling him he lost, Trump routinely took to Twitter (now X) and conservative media to lie about the election.
