For a brief moment, Republicans were ready to move past Trump.
The first votes of the 2024 presidential campaign have been cast and Donald Trump has emerged smelling victory. He’s so confident, in fact, that he even said nice things about his opponents on election night in Iowa. While he won’t win the New Hampshire primary by the historic margin he got in the Iowa caucuses, there is no doubt he will ultimately go on to trounce his remaining rivals for the Republican nomination. It’s the contest that wasn’t really a contest, but it could have been.
It's hard to remember now, but there was period after the 2022 midterm elections when support for Trump wobbled. Even two-time Trump voters told us that while they loved his record, they were ready to move on.
If the New Hampshire Republican primary were held a year ago, our research showed that Ron DeSantis would have won. Three other public polls conducted in New Hampshire between November 2022 and January 2023 showed the same.
Timing is everything. And time has worked in Trump’s favor, or, rather, the indictments against him have worked in his favor. But there is still a lot of time before the November general election. I believe it is possible that the conditions that created some initial fissures in Trump’s support a year ago could return, although given what lies ahead, it would be folly to make any confident predictions about how the next year will play out.
So, what are those conditions? In a nutshell, if Trump returns to his obsession with himself and the past, particularly the outcome of the 2020 election.
While polls show the vast majority of Republicans do not believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, the question has become something of an identity signifier for Republicans. They answer “no,” on a poll, but if asked follow-up questions, they will tell you they don’t want to litigate it anymore. “It’s over, time to move on,” they say. By the 2022 midterm election, even Republican voters were tired of talking about the “stolen election.” And during this time, they started to see Trump as self-focused and egotistical and no longer interested in Making America Great. It had become all about him. Republican voters told us they were tired of the Trump circus.
In the months ahead, Trump faces numerous trials that will be: all about him, and the past, which is how trials operate. Voters want to hear about the future and what you will do for them, not the past.
It is very likely Donald Trump will be in defendant mode more than campaign mode and that will not be good for his messaging. He knows that his appeal is making his personal grudges into a collective grudge: “I am YOUR retribution.” But it is likely he will slip into self-pity mode and will feel the need to answer the charges of the prosecution in public settings, like his rallies. It is possible that even the nostalgia for the Trump low-inflation economy or his America First agenda won’t be enough to overcome the distaste voters will have for Trump’s personal pity party. These trials promise to relitigate the 2020 election and January 6th – both topics Republicans, in particular, have no interest in revisiting and which turn swing voters off of Trump.
The polling around Trump’s trials has been focused on the possibility of his conviction, but the more intangible impact of his trials will be to remind voters exactly what they dislike about Trump: the ego, the victimhood, the narcissism. What’s in it for them with a second term?
The reality is that most Republicans will continue to rally around Trump against what they see as illegitimate and weaponized charges and their support and enthusiasm will remain high, but some may drift. And, certainly, college-educated, suburban swing voters may realize, again, that this isn’t simply a referendum on Joe Biden (however disappointed they may be in him) but a choice between a stalwart of democracy and stability and someone with a savior complex who promises retribution and to be a dictator, for just one day.