Despite growing legal peril for former President Donald Trump, there has been little overall shift in public opinion in recent months about whether or not he has done something wrong, either by acting unethically or illegally. But according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, Republican faith in Trump's faultlessness has dwindled this summer.
An expanded federal indictment against Trump, linked to his handling of classified documents, was unsealed Thursday, while another possible indictment looms out of a special counsel probe into the Jan. 6 riot and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Considering the criminal cases swirling around Trump, about half of U.S. adults think the 2024 frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination has done something illegal, according to this latest poll, conducted July 24 to July 27. That includes most Democrats and a slim majority of independents. At the same time, roughly a quarter of Americans think he has acted unethically, but not illegally.
Chart by Jenna Cohen/PBS NewsHour
Another 19 percent said Trump has done nothing wrong, which has shrunk from about a quarter of Americans last month. Republicans are split over the gravity of Trump's actions.
The Department of Justice's superseding indictment contains new federal charges against Trump, including obstruction and willful retention of national defense information, as part of the investigation into the withholding of classified documents at the former president's Florida estate. A Mar-a-Lago employee, Carlos De Oliveira, was also indicted for conspiring with Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, to delete surveillance footage during the investigation.
READ MORE: Trump faces new federal charges over Mar-a-Lago camera footage in classified materials case
These latest charges add to Trump's mounting legal and ethical challenges. He is currently the subject of four criminal probes, examining his role in hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, interfering with the election process in Georgia, attempting to overturn Biden's victory in the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. He has already been indicted on dozens of felony charges in two of those cases.
Taken together, Trump's legal difficulties may be weighing him down among some voters within his own party. In mid-June, 32 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said if Trump continues to run for president, they are likely to support another candidate. By late July, that interest in backing a different GOP nominee rose to 37 percent.
Yet a majority of Republican primary voters have dismissed the criminal and civil allegations, investigations, indictments and trials involving Trump as being politically motivated, regardless of the evidence gathered against him, said Republican strategist Douglas Heye. And a majority of Republicans – 58 percent – say they still plan to vote for Trump, according to this latest poll.
Trump supporters "haven't really spent a lot of time with any of the evidence because they don't want to," Republican strategist Whit Ayres said.
READ MORE: Read Trump's new charges in the classified documents case
Though the comparison is a false equivalency, Republicans may point to the legal probes (or problems) that have ensnared Hunter Biden or former Vice President Mike Pence as another justification for their support for Trump, Ayres also suggested.
So far, Trump's claims that he has done nothing wrong "allow him to reinforce his core message – that the system's rigged," Heye said.
Trump has also succeeded in turning his legal problems into political cash. The Trump campaign has said they have raised millions of dollars after every indictment.
Chart by Jenna Cohen/PBS NewsHour
"Republican voters like Trump, and they see him as somebody who is still a strong, if not the strongest, candidate in 2024," said Amy Walter, editor of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. "Whether or not there are more indictments that come out, it is doubtful that they will do anything to diminish that feeling among Republicans."
That support among Trump's core base likely won't change unless a Republican presidential contender confronts Trump or he is challenged in debates, Heye predicted.
A new era is dawning in American politics, Ayres said, and if any party's going to nominate a candidate with a criminal conviction, "it's going to be the Republican Party in the Trump era."
But general elections are a different matter, and Trump remains a deeply polarizing figure, Heye said: "Once you get out of Republican primary voters, he's unpopular throughout the country."
With primary elections on the horizon but the general election still more than a year away, these latest poll numbers suggest that independents "are a whole lot more like Dems and that's not normally a good sign when it comes to a general election," Ayres said. Even among Republican-leaning independents, 54 percent said they would likely choose a different GOP candidate, compared to 37 percent who would pick Trump.
However, while the Republican Party must figure out how to address Trump's legal liabilities, Democrats "shouldn't feel particularly confident" that the 2024 presidential and congressional races will add up to a "landslide victory," Walter cautioned.
The PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a survey between July 24 and July 27 that polled 1,285 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, 1,165 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points and 455 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents with a margin of error of 6.1 percentage points.