Trump’s legal jeopardy hasn’t hurt his Republican Party support, Times/Siena poll finds

Donald J. Trump continues to march toward the 2024 Republican presidential nomination with a commanding lead over his main rivals, even as a strong majority of voters across the country believe he has committed serious federal crimes, including a growing faction of Republicans, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena College.

The results show the remarkable extent to which Republican voters are willing to look past Trump’s legal danger — the former president has been indicted four times and faces 91 felony charges in 2023 — and rally behind his potential return to power.

Overall, 58 percent of voters nationwide believe Trump committed serious federal crimes, including 66 percent of independent voters.

Still, Trump continues to beat his closest Republican competitors in the primaries by more than 50 percentage points, gaining the support of 64 percent of Republican primary voters nationwide. Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, is now in a distant second place, with 11 percent, followed by Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has fallen to third place with 9 percent.

The poll was conducted before a court ruling Tuesday added more legal uncertainty to the 2024 presidential race. The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Mr. Trump is disqualified from holding office because he was involved in an insurrection ahead of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, a decision the former president plans to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Trump’s primary lead has increased since the summer, even as the share of Republicans and Republican independents who believe he is engaged in crime has risen to 27 percent from 17 percent in July. Mr. Trump leads not only because he dominates among the large share of Republicans who view him as innocent, but also because he is winning over one in three Republican voters who believe he is guilty of serious crime.

Support for Trump in the Times/Siena poll is so strong that 62 percent of Republicans think if the former president wins the primaries, he should remain the Republican Party’s nominee — even if he is subsequently convicted of a federal crime .

“What they are doing to the man is a crime,” James Howe, 81, a retired airline worker in Phoenix, said of Mr. Trump. “There has been no one in the history of this country who has had so many people try to convict him of a crime.”

But there are clear warning signs for Mr. Trump about the impact of his legal jeopardy in a potential showdown with President Biden. More than one in five Republican voters think Trump has committed crimes, and 13 percent of Republicans believe he should be found guilty in court for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. For now, Mr. Biden is winning only a third of Republicans who say Mr. Trump should be found guilty, leaving room for Mr. Biden to gain support.

Mr Trump’s political and legal fates appear increasingly intertwined, with his lawyers seeking to delay his upcoming trials. While Trump’s charges do not appear to pose a barrier to his potential nomination, the 32 percent of Republicans who believe a conviction means the party must nominate someone else could provide fertile electoral ground for Democrats.

Many voters readily admitted that they had not fully tuned in to Trump’s legal travails. The charges he faces include his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his hush money payments to a porn star in 2016.

About half of voters said they paid little or no attention to the cases, with Democrats paying more attention than Republicans or independent voters. It remains unclear whether there will be a lawsuit will begin before the general election next fall, but Mr. Trump’s legal team is preparing for the likelihood that one of the cases could begin as early as March.

A majority of voters, 53 percent, said they believe he is somewhat or very unlikely to be convicted in the 2020 election case, compared to 35 percent who thought a conviction was very or somewhat likely.

In many ways, public opinion about the allegations against Mr. Trump appears to have been fractured, if not distorted, by the same polarized lens that colors so much of the way Americans consume political news today.

“For him to take those classified documents home, you know, that’s clearly illegal. It’s against the law, but I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as they make it out to be,” said Clifford McRoberts, 72, who lives in Bay Point, California, and operates a small online store.

A conviction, he said, would not deter his vote for Trump.

“No, no, not at all,” Mr McRoberts said. “I also voted for Nixon.”

As many as 83 percent of Republicans view Trump’s prosecutions as politically motivated. And 84 percent of Democrats said he was charged because prosecutors believed he broke the law.

Voters in the poll were also equally divided — 47 percent to 47 percent — on whether Trump actually believed the election was stolen or whether he knowingly made false claims. And again, more than 80 percent of both Democrats and Republicans sided with their political tribes.

Perhaps as a result, the series of charges against Mr. Trump so far do not appear to be helping Mr. Biden politically.

Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 46 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. Among those most likely to vote, however, Mr. Biden trails even Mr. Trump, 47 percent to 45 percent. In a sign of Mr. Biden’s weakness among registered voters, his level of support is actually lower than the share of voters — 47 percent — who think Mr. Trump should be found guilty of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Reservations about Mr. Biden are undermining concerns about Mr. Trump’s criminality for some voters.

Allison Sullender, 39, a self-described independent voter who lives in San Bernardino, California, said she was undecided about her 2024 vote. She sees Mr. Trump as a “crooked businessman” but is deeply concerned about the gentleman’s age Biden and the economy.

For now, she’s leaning Democrat. “But am I confident he will last another four years?” she said. “No, I don’t.”

There is a huge educational divide when it comes to how voters view the criminal charges against Mr. Trump.

Among those with a college degree, 64 percent believe Trump was indicted because prosecutors believe he committed crimes. Those without a college education have taken the opposite view, with 54 percent of them seeing the accusations as politically motivated.

By and large, college graduates think Trump should be held guilty for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Voters who have not graduated from college take the opposite view.

The education gap is also visible within the Republican Party.

By a huge margin — 70 percent to 25 percent — Republicans without a college degree say Trump should remain the nominee even if he is convicted. Still, opinions are evenly divided among Republican college graduates.

If, as expected, the 2020 election case goes to trial, 47 percent of voters say Trump should be found guilty, compared to 39 percent who say not guilty. But confidence in the fairness of a trial was not widespread, with 43 percent saying a trial would be fair and impartial, compared to 49 percent who said it would not.

“I don’t believe our legal system will give him a fair trial,” said Nykhael Kim, 39, a sales manager in Easley, S.C., who supported Mr. DeSantis in the primaries but still sees Mr. Trump’s prosecution. as ‘politically motivated’.

Fifty percent of voters — including 18 percent of Republicans — said that if Mr. Trump were convicted, he should be sentenced to prison.

When it comes to the presidential primaries, the poll shows very little sign of political vulnerability for Trump less than a month before the election begins. He dominates Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis among Republican voters of all ages and income levels, in cities, rural areas and suburbs. Trump wins 80 percent of Republican Party primary voters who think he has not committed serious crimes — and 34 percent of those who think he has.

Trump’s rivals have repeatedly argued that the election will unfold state by state, starting in Iowa and New Hampshire. But the national picture remains bleak for them, with Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis each hovering around 10 percent support.

The poll makes clear the very different political coalitions Trump’s rivals have put together to achieve that goal.

Most of Mr. DeSantis’ voters do not think Mr. Trump committed serious federal crimes, while most of Ms. Haley’s supporters think he did. Nearly all of Mr. DeSantis’ supporters said they would support Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden, while Ms. Haley’s supporters are more closely divided on that issue.

Education is also a key factor in understanding the dynamics of the Republican primaries.

Ms. Haley wins 28 percent of Republicans with a college degree, but only 3 percent of Republicans who do not have a college degree. Mr. Trump wins both groups, but he received nearly twice as much support from Republicans who did not go to college (76 percent) as from those who did (39 percent).

Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman, is at 5 percent in the polls, and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who has been the loudest in arguing that Trump’s behavior and lawsuits make him “unfit” to return to White House, received 3 percent support.

Maggie Haberman reporting contributed.

The New York Times/Siena College survey of 1,016 registered voters nationwide was conducted by telephone using live operators from December 10 to 14, 2023. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters. Crosstabs and methodology are available here.