The left cannot understand why, despite his legal woes, the GOP is still very much Trump’s party. Dems, and even some independents, cannot wrap their collective heads around why the GOP cannot escape from Donald Trump, even if they wanted to. That is because the left simply does not understand Trump, Trump voters, nor what weak candidate they actually have in Joe Biden.”
For just the briefest of moments, following the Republican Party’s lackluster showing in the November 2022 midterms, it seemed like the GOP was finally ready to move on from Donald Trump. It was assumed that the losses of Trump-backed candidates in winnable swing-state races would be the last straw for rank-and-file Republicans, who voiced their frustration that Trump had caused their party to underperform in yet another national election.
But nine months later, the former president has only tightened his grip on the GOP, leaving little doubt that it is still Donald Trump’s Republican Party. The latest national polling underscores Trump’s dominance. He leads the full GOP primary field with 61 percent of the vote, putting him nearly 50 points ahead of the second and third-place contenders: businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with 13 percent and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) with 12 percent. None of the other dozen-or-so candidates eclipse single digits.
The intensity of Trump’s support is just as significant to note, as 56 percent of Republican primary voters say they will “definitely” vote for him, while 19 percent probably will — versus 11 percent who probably will not, and 11 percent who definitely will not.
Why Trump’s Grip on the Party Is Unwavering
What is driving Trump’s ever-increasing strength? In addition to GOP voters’ genuine fondness for Trump and his policies — nine in 10 approve of the job he did as president, including 2 in 3 who “strongly” approve — his campaign’s successful messaging around his legal challenges has certainly played a role, with Trump having been indicted in four separate cases, both state and federal, on 91 counts this year. Rather than hurting him, the arrests and indictments have only helped the Trump juggernaut.
Trump has used the charges to reinforce his core positioning as a political martyr facing unfair persecution by the establishment and has clearly struck a responsive chord: 51 percent of Republican primary voters say the recent indictments have made them more likely to support Trump in the primary, while only 17 percent are now less likely to support him.
Yet, as said earlier, it seemed that after the midterm debacle, the GOP was ready to consider someone other than Trump. What’s changed, why now ?It’s not only Trump’s legal persecution.
One of the clearest explanations for this shift is the increasing weakness of President Joe Biden, who GOP voters now view as “eminently beatable,” according to an analysis by pollster Kristin Soltis Anderson, based on focus groups she conducted with Republican voters in early primary states this month. Separately, Republican strategist Josh Holmes recently noted that “the perception that Biden is the weakest possible candidate has lowered the Trump electability question in the calculus of [Republican] primary voters.”
The media – especially conservative media – has certainly played a role in driving this shift with their consistent focus on Biden’s diminishing mental faculties and old age. According to data collected by Media Matters, in the week following Biden’s official campaign launch, the three largest cable news outlets mentioned the president’s age nearly 600 times. Fox News alone mentioned Biden’s age 236 times, at least one mention every single hour. For reference, the age of Trump, who is nearly as old as Biden, was mentioned only nine times by Fox News in that week.
To the dismay of those on the left, based on the trajectory of the race, taken together with both quantitative and qualitative research on the Republican electorate, it is abundantly clear that Trump’s overwhelming strength in the primary race cannot be separated from Biden’s perceived weakness.