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The latest national CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, covered quite a bit of ground, though there was one line of questioning that struck me as especially notable.
“As you may have heard, Donald Trump is facing criminal charges in four separate cases. For each of these cases, please indicate whether you think, if true, those charges should disqualify Trump from the presidency, cast doubts on his fitness for the job, but are not disqualifying, are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency.”
Let’s take the results one at a time, focusing specifically on the responses from Republican voters.
On the former president’s classified documents scandal:
- Disqualify him from presidency: 12%
- Cast doubts: 20%
- Aren’t relevant to his fitness for the presidency: 68%
On charges related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election:
- Disqualify him from presidency: 13%
- Cast doubts: 19%
- Aren’t relevant to his fitness for the presidency: 68%
On charges related to Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack:
- Disqualify him from presidency: 16%
- Cast doubts: 17%
- Aren’t relevant to his fitness for the presidency: 67%
Broadly speaking, I think there are a couple of angles that are worth keeping in mind as the 2024 race and the former president’s criminal cases advance in the coming weeks and months.
The first is there’s a small-but-significant percentage of GOP voters who apparently believe that the charges against Trump, if true, have the potential to be disqualifying.
The degree to which these voters take that principle seriously remains to be seen, but if this contingent of Republicans is serious, and the former president is convicted, it raises the prospect of a chunk of the GOP electorate balking at Trump’s candidacy. In a competitive general election, this has the potential to matter quite a bit.
The second is that roughly two-thirds of Republican voters have apparently convinced themselves that even if Trump is guilty — of mishandling highly sensitive national security secrets, of trying to overturn an election he lost, of helping instigate an attack on his own country’s capitol — such misdeeds simply “are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency.”
The next time someone suggests that the Republican Party champions “law and order,” keep these poll results in mind.