Primary Standing
A lot has been made about the Trump indictments and his popularity in the Republican primary field. The graph above of the Real Clear Politics (RCP) moving average of Polls for the GOP field. Trump’s support did receive a 5% boost after the first indictment for a payment to a porn star came down on March 30. Ron DeSantis’ support declined by 5.5% in the week after the first indictment. There was minimal change in the other candidate’s support.
The second indictment for taking classified documents came down on June 8 with minimal change in his standing in the polls. Ron DeSantis’ standing in the polls appears to have declined more in the weeks after the second indictment in Florida.
The third indictment for election interference came down on August 1. There was minimal change in Trump’s support but DeSantis’ support decreased from 18.1% to 13.5% on Aug 30. Vivek Ramaswamy’s support increased from 5% to 7.3% over the same period. The fourth indictment on August 14, Trump’s mugshot and the GOP debate appear to have had little effect on the race.
Favorability Rating
The above graph shows Trump’s overall favorability rating for the last six months. The blue line is the one I added to show his rating at the time of the first indictment (39.4%). There is a bump in his favorability in the 2nd half of May that do not seem to correspond to any of his indictments. His most recent favorability rating of 38.4% is 1.8% lower than Biden’s which is 40.2%.
In a two way race between Trump and Biden, the most recent RCP average gives Biden a 0.8% advantage (44.6% for Biden and 43.8%). RCP does not yet provide a graphical representation for the two way race trend. I computed the difference between the two candidates support for the two weeks before the indictment. For the 5 polls conducted between March 13 and March 27, Biden had an advantage of 0.8% (44.2% for Biden and 43.4%. Overall, the effect of the Trump indictments on his popularity has improved his standing with the GOP primary field. So far it has not helped or hurt his chances in the general election next year.