Republican challengers struggle in primary polls despite Trump’s legal troubles

Geoff Bennett:

So far, former President Donald Trump's growing legal troubles do not appear to be putting a dent in his support among Republican voters.

The latest polling shows the former president maintaining his stranglehold over the GOP, and there's scant evidence that any of his challengers will be able to loosen his grip on the nomination, even as he faces criminal charges.

Former President Donald Trump is trouncing his 2024 Republican rivals, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll, holding a massive 37 percentage-point lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential field, the results underscoring Mr. Trump's iron grip on the Republican electorate, even as he faces multiple criminal and civil legal cases.

Donald Trump, Former President of the United States: Thank you very much, Erie.

Geoff Bennett:

Speaking this weekend in Pennsylvania, the former president railed against Democrats, repeated false claims of election fraud, and urged Republicans to jump to his defense.

Donald Trump:

Radical lunatic Democrats, they impeach me, they indict me, they rig our elections.

And the Republicans just don't fight the way — they're good people, but they don't fight the way they're supposed to fight. The others are dirty, sick players. And the Republicans are very high-class. They have got to be a little bit lower-class.

Geoff Bennett:

Among Mr. Trump's rivals, different approaches for taking on the dominant front-runner for the party's nomination.

Former Congressman Will Hurd speaking Friday before a crowd of party faithful in Iowa tore into the former president.

Fmr. Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), presidential candidate: Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect…

(Booing)

Geoff Bennett:

Which drew a chorus of boos.

Fmr. Rep. Will Hurd:

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. Listen, I know the truth — the truth is hard.

Geoff Bennett:

And, on the airwaves, former Governor Nikki Haley encouraged Republicans to move beyond Donald Trump.

Nikki Haley (R), presidential candidate: Well, none of us want to be talking about indictments. I don't even know if it's the third, fourth or fifth indictment right now. But what I can tell you is, it's a distraction.

Geoff Bennett:

As former governor and outspoken Trump critic Chris Christie offered this:

Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), presidential candidate: It is most likely that by the time we get on the debate stage on August 23 the front-runner will be out on bail in four different jurisdictions.

Geoff Bennett:

But Ron DeSantis, speaking to reporters today in New Hampshire, dodged a question about Mr. Trump's legal exposure, avoiding any mentions of the former president.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), presidential candidate: We're here to talk about restore worrying this economy.

Geoff Bennett:

And for a closer look at the latest developments in the Republican primary, we're joined now by Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who has in the past consulted for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio.

It's great to have you here.

Whit Ayres, President, North Star Opinion Research:

Good to be with you, Geoff.

Geoff Bennett:

The New York Times, in its analysis of that poll that we mentioned, notes that, in the modern history of presidential primaries, no candidate who has led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this point in the race has ever lost a party nomination.

And Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis by nearly double that. Is a Trump nomination inevitable at this point, Whit?

Whit Ayres:

Far from it, Geoff.

I mean, we have never in American history had a leading candidate for president facing multiple serious felony indictments either. So it's such an unstable environment with the things that haven't happened yet that might happen that we don't know about.

Does Donald Trump have a huge lead in the national polls? Yes, he does. And I think it's unreasonable to expect the national polls to change before people start voting in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina. But there are plenty of examples of people starting to vote and somebody popping in one of those early states, and then the national numbers follow along behind that.

But I don't think the national numbers are going to change until Iowa.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, let me ask you then about the intensity of Donald Trump's support, noting that this, of course, is a national poll, as you say.

But it finds that 43 percent of Republicans have a very favorable opinion of Donald Trump, a group that he carries by an overwhelming 92 percent, to a 7 percent margin if he's in a one-on-one race with Ron DeSantis.

How does Ron DeSantis overcome that, a 92 to 7 percent margin?

Whit Ayres:

It would be very difficult.

But Ron DeSantis may not be the one who has the best shot of doing it. Let's presume at the start that running for president is really hard. Lamar Alexander, our first presidential candidate, is used to saying that running for a statewide office and running for president is the difference between running for — or playing in eighth grade basketball and the NBA finals. It's really hard.

Let's also agree that no one has quite figured out how to deal with a Donald Trump full-fledged assault, not just on your character or record, which is par for the course, but on your appearance, your wife's appearance — ask Ted Cruz — presumably laying out allegations, totally unsupported, about pedophilia, like he did with Ron DeSantis. No one has done that.

That said, Ron DeSantis keeps making unforced error after unforced error. He said that Ukraine was just a territorial dispute, which really upset a lot of Republicans in the foreign policy world. He suggested that RFK Jr., a conspiracy theorist of the highest order, should run the Center for Disease Control.

And he keeps doubling down on the argument that somehow slavery was beneficial to some slaves. I mean, those are obvious cases where going one direction was the obvious answer, and he went the other direction. That makes me wonder if he's got the political instincts to play effectively at this level.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, I was going to ask you that.

You have the experience of having worked for Governor DeSantis during his 2018 gubernatorial bid. What seems to be the problem? Is the strategy flawed? Is the candidate flawed, or both?

Whit Ayres:

He has a hard time working with people. He will have absolutely nothing to do with anyone associated with a hard-fought, successful race in 2018, not the pollster, not you, the media consultant, not the general consultant, not the campaign manager, and not the financial consultant.

That's a little unusual, Geoff, when you have a candidate winning and will have nothing to do with any of the people helping.

Geoff Bennett:

The candidates who seem to be taking on Donald Trump directly, to include Chris Christie, Will Hurd, Asa Hutchinson, is there enough of a share of the Republican electorate left for them to mount serious challenges?

Whit Ayres:

We have talked before about how there is a never-Trump cohort in the Republican Party, but it's only about 10 to 12 percent.

Those messages appeal a lot to the never-Trump people. But there's a majority of the party that are maybe Trump people that voted for him twice, and — but are skeptical that he can win in 2024. The problem is, if — when you say Donald Trump is unfit for office, that makes those people have to recognize that they voted twice for someone who was unfit to be president.

That's a hard psychological leap to get over for most of those people.

Geoff Bennett:

Because people don't want to believe that they were wrong.

Whit Ayres:

Exactly. Exactly.

And so I think those three candidates you mentioned are very effective in making a never-Trump argument, but I think they're going to tap out at 10 to 12 percent of the electorate.

Geoff Bennett:

Whit Ayres, always great to speak with you. I'm sure we will have you back as this campaign unfolds.

Whit Ayres:

Great to be here. Great to be here, Geoff.