Trump Support Remains Unmoved by Investigations, Poll Finds
“Even during peak crises during his presidency, views of him were static. Post-presidency polls have continued the trend.
Sign up for the Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data.
The American public’s views of former President Donald J. Trump have remained remarkably stable across a number of different measures in recent months, even as he faces multiple investigations and as he remains a central figure in the midterm elections, according to the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
Voters held nearly identical views from those earlier in the summer on whether they had a favorable view of Mr. Trump, whether they thought he had committed serious federal crimes, and whom they would support in a hypothetical 2024 Trump-Biden matchup.
Overall, 44 percent of voters viewed Mr. Trump favorably, and 53 percent viewed him unfavorably. The recent poll was fielded early this month, after news of the Justice Department’s inquiry into Mr. Trump’s handling of confidential documents but before the New York attorney general announced she was suing Mr. Trump and his family business.
That level of Trump support has effectively been unchanged since the last Times/Siena poll, which was fielded in July amid televised hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. It was also fundamentally similar to levels of support Times/Siena polls and other surveys found in recent years.
The public’s view of Mr. Trump’s fight against the election results also remained largely unchanged, with 54 percent in the most recent survey saying his actions posed a threat to democracy and 38 percent saying he had just exercised his right to contest the election.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
With the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.
- North Carolina Senate Race: Are Democrats about to get their hearts broken again? The contest between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and her G.O.P. opponent, Representative Ted Budd, seems close enough to raise their hopes.
- Inflation Concerns Persist: In the six-month primary season that has just ended, several issues have risen and fallen, but nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.
- Times/Siena Poll: Our second survey of the 2022 election cycle found Democrats remain unexpectedly competitive in the battle for Congress, while G.O.P. dreams of a major realignment among Latino voters have failed to materialize.
- Echoing Trump: Six G.O.P. nominees for governor and the Senate in critical midterm states, all backed by former President Donald J. Trump, would not commit to accepting this year’s election results.
And roughly half of voters said they thought Mr. Trump had committed serious federal crimes, while 38 percent thought he had not. That was similar to the responses from July, when respondents were asked more specifically about Mr. Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump has often boasted about the loyalty of his supporters. That loyalty has long been clear in his favorability ratings, which remained stable throughout his time in office, even during moments of peak turmoil, such as his first impeachment trial. His approval ratings rose briefly as Covid-19 started to spread in the United States in spring of 2020, but by May his support had returned to previous levels.
Many of Mr. Trump’s signature policy proposals have remained fairly popular among the public, the September poll found. Half of all respondents favored a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, including more than 15 percent of those who said they would vote for Mr. Biden in 2024. And a majority said they agreed more with the Republican Party than with the Democratic Party when it came to illegal immigration.
Mr. Trump has signaled another run for president. In a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with President Biden, 45 percent said they would support Mr. Biden, while 42 percent said they would support Mr. Trump. (Mr. Biden’s margin of victory in the 2020 election was 4.4 percentage points.)
In 2020, Mr. Trump made gains among Hispanic voters, a group that has historically favored Democrats. The recent poll found that Republicans continue to maintain a similar level of support among Hispanic voters, particularly young Hispanic men.
Antonio Chavez, a 34-year-old delivery driver from Amarillo, Texas, said that he had voted for a mix of Democrats and Republicans over the years but that he would probably vote for Mr. Trump in 2024 if he ran again.
“I don’t know too much,” he said. “When the race starts getting closer, I’ll start paying attention, but right now he’s just at the forefront for me.
“I have a few reservations about supporting him because of the document issue, but I like to see what the other side is going with.”
There were signs in the poll that views on Mr. Trump were more complex than they are sometimes made out to be. Across all measures asked, 30 percent of voters consistently held views that could be considered pro-Trump, such as planning to support him if he runs in 2024 and saying that his actions after the 2020 election were justified. Thirty-nine percent of voters consistently held a series of views that could be described as anti-Trump.
However, nearly 30 percent appeared to hold seemingly conflicting views about him and his actions — either by expressing a mix of sentiments or by declining to respond to one of the questions.
For instance, 14 percent of respondents said they both planned to support him and believed his actions after the 2020 election went so far as to be a threat to democracy.“
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