NBC News analyst Steve Kornacki discussed the impact of Donald Trump’s legal situation on the Republican Party presidential primary.
Kornacki noted a shift in favor of Trump after his indictment, with core Republican voters perceiving the legal situation as a politically motivated attack on Trump.
He highlighted that polls previously showed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis beating Trump, but after Trump’s indictment, there was a rally-around-Trump effect among core Republicans, leading to a dominance in national polls.
Evangelicals drive former President Trump’s lead in the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll, Steve Kornacki explains.
Meanwhile, Independents and Democrats are pushing Haley into second place. pic.twitter.com/ywELcJOop5— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 15, 2024
“I think it’s a story that’s fundamental to Donald Trump’s dominance that we saw last night and his dominance in the national polls right now,” Kornacki said.
“It’s that core Republican voters see the legal situation around Trump and I know we’ve got all sorts of different areas here, I’ll just say the legal situation to keep it simple, but they see the legal situation as an attack, as a politically motivated attack on Donald Trump.”
“It wasn’t that long ago, but I want to remind folks in the early months of 2023, and the last month of 2022, December 2022, coming off that 2022 midterm where the Republicans underperformed, where the Trump aligned candidates lost key races that cost Republicans the Senate and other major offices, Trump was running, this is the national average, DeSantis never caught him in the national average, but we would routinely see polls in January and February of 2023 that had DeSantis within 10 points of Trump,” he said. “There were polls, I can go find you five of them right now that had DeSantis ahead nationally of Donald Trump.”
“The atmosphere in early 23 was ‘Republicans are moving on from Trump, they’re sick of the losing, they’ve years of this act, they’re going to look for other options here,’” he added.
“That’s why so many candidates stepped forward and look where the lines diverge. Look where the Trump line takes off. Look where the DeSantis line kind of flatlines and nobody’s moved up. What week was that? That is literally the week that Donald Trump was indicted on the first of the charges in Manhattan on the Stormy Daniels matter.”
Kornacki emphasized that the legal events triggered a response from core Republicans, who saw it as an attack on Trump and rallied around him.
It is “unquestionable to me when you look at these numbers, and you just, if you were apply all the little legal dates that popped up throughout the year to this, they triggered a rally-around-Trump effect among core Republicans,” he said.
“They clearly see this as politically motivated. They see this as Trump’s opponents using the legal system to go after him. And they responded that way by rallying around him, you literally see it, the week of that first indictment and that has been the story since.”
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