| Political response to Trump charges |
| A day after the arraignment of Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, the U.S. political landscape is more uncertain than ever as the former president’s legal peril grows. |
| To some Republican and Democratic leaders, the charges appeared to be flimsy, a hodgepodge of bookkeeping accusations that felt far less consequential than many had hoped. To others in both parties, the charges and the attendant spectacle were troubling and had the potential to reverberate and hurt the former president politically. |
| At the very least, the charges will have to be answered in a court of law, extending a tawdry tale of extramarital affairs into a courtroom for a party that once considered itself the home of family values. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges — during his third run for the White House, no less. |
| But the moment did not yield a rush to abandon him by many voters or party leaders. In a focus group, voters who had cast ballots for Trump in 2016 and 2020 said they would vote for him again. Even conservative evangelical leaders who might be expected to look askance at the extramarital dalliances contained in the allegations were supportive. |
| Quotable: “It feeds into Donald Trump’s whole theme that the Democrats are out to get him at any cost and will stretch any law and come up with any novel legal theory to do so,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. He added, “It plays right into his hands.” |
| For more: The indictment of the former president has unlocked a rush of fund-raising and has frozen the 2024 Republican primary. |
