Trump Receives Indictment Bump, Again, Now Has His Biggest Lead Yet in GOP Race

The boost in polling following the federal indictment follows a pattern set by the first indictment of Trump. Since the Manhattan indictment, Trump has enjoyed a steady increase in support in the polls.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images
President Trump at a campaign rally on April 27, 2023 at Manchester, New Hampshire. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The first national poll following the federal indictment of Donald Trump shows the former president is consolidating his lead among Republican voters and enjoying a post-indictment bump, again.

A poll of 586 likely voters from YouGov and CBS News found that, among Republican primary voters, Mr. Trump enjoyed 61 percent support ahead of the Republican presidential primaries. The runner up, Mr. DeSantis, enjoyed 23 percent and Vice President Pence saw 4 percent support.

This represents a 9-point bump from the last YouGov poll before the indictment, which was conducted for the Economist, which found that Mr. Trump enjoyed 52 percent support in the GOP primary.

The poll also measured how GOP primary voters are thinking about Mr. Trump and other candidates, including asking respondents whether they are considering specific candidates.

The poll found that 57 percent of likely Republican primary voters were considering voting for Mr. Trump in the primary and only 14 percent were not considering supporting the former president.

The portion of voters not considering Mr. Trump was the lowest of any GOP candidate. Mr. DeSantis, for example, had 51 percent of respondents considering him as a candidate and 27 percent not considering him.

Senator Scott followed Mr. DeSantis in this measure, with 21 percent considering him as a candidate and 42 percent not considering him. Every other candidate in the field had a majority of respondents not considering them for president.

The boost in polling after the federal indictment follows a pattern set by the first indictment of Mr. Trump. Since the Manhattan indictment, Mr. Trump has enjoyed a steady increase in support in the polls.

At the end of March, Mr. Trump was polling at 47 percent support in the GOP primary, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls. On June 11, Mr. Trump enjoyed 55 percent support in the polling average.

An indictment in Georgia relating to Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn election results in the state could have a similar rally around the flag effect to the first two. The YouGov poll’s results suggest that this is because most Republicans do not think the indictment of Mr. Trump was brought for legitimate reasons.

The poll, conducted between June 9 and 10, found that 76 percent of Republicans think the “indictment was politically motivated” compared to 12 percent who think that Mr. Trump’s possession of classified documents was a “national security risk.” An additional 12 percent answered “both.”

In the event that Mr. Trump pulls out of the presidential race or is unable to run, respondents also signaled that they would like the nominee to be a politician in Mr. Trump’s image.

Nearly a quarter, 74 percent, answered that they want the nominee, if it can’t be Mr. Trump, to be “similar to Trump,” while 26 percent of respondents said that they would like a candidate “different from Trump.”


The New York Sun

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