Amid an escalating series of legal woes, former President Donald Trump has seen his support amongst Republican voters drop significantly, according to a recent poll.
The poll, conducted in a collaboration between ABC News and The Washington Post, was released on Sunday and showed a steep decline in popularity for Trump now, compared to the support he had in 2020 when he secured the GOP nomination for reelection. According to the poll, which has a margin of error of 3.5 percent, 47 percent of Republican and conservative-leaning independent respondents said that they support Trump as the prospective party nominee in 2024, while 46 percent oppose the idea. This, ABC News said, represents a 20 percent drop in support from 2020.
The poll, conducted for the news outlets by Langer Research Associates, showed President Joe Biden pulling ahead slightly in a hypothetical 2024 match-up against Trump, 48-to-46, which ABC News called "essentially tied." However, when the pool of respondents was refined to include registered voters only, the match-up reversed to Trump's favor with a 48-to-46 breakdown.
The poll was conducted by telephone in both English and Spanish, among a random sample of 1,006 adults, including 908 registered voters.
Despite that seeming stalemate, 52 percent of respondents said they believe Trump should be charged with a crime in one of the numerous federal cases currently against him. ABC News said that this support for charges is similar to findings from just after the January 6 Capitol riot.
In August, Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was subject to an FBI raid amid an investigation into whether or not he took classified documents with him upon leaving the White House. The search turned up numerous boxes of such documents, many kept in unsecured conditions, leading many to speculate that Trump could be charged under the Espionage Act. The former president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in regard to the documents, and said that any classified documents he took had been declassified.
Trump and three of his children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump, are also the targets of a civil lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who alleges that the Trump Organization "knowingly and intentionally" submitted over 200 false valuations of assets in an effort to get larger bank loans and lower tax bills.
At a rally on Friday night, Trump railed against James and the lawsuit, calling the AG a "raging maniac" who "deserves to be removed from office, immediately disbarred and banished from the legal profession forever."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office for comment.
The Langer Research poll also found uninspiring numbers for President Biden heading into 2024. According to the poll, only 35 percent of Democrat or liberal-leaning independent respondents supported Biden for reelection in two years, while 56 percent said they would prefer the party to pick a different candidate. The survey said that the relative unpopularity of the two prospective candidates could be a boon for third parties, though they are typically unsuccessful.
62frog on September 25th, 2022 at 18:59 UTC »
Oh god please run as a third party candidate out of spite, I beg you
Quexana on September 25th, 2022 at 15:35 UTC »
Next begins the period when they all claim to have never supported him while they still support all of his policies.
Your__Pal on September 25th, 2022 at 15:35 UTC »
66 down to 46 percent who want him as the nominee in 2024.
His approval will crash another 20% if we ever get pictures of him in handcuffs.