How the Republicans are trying to use Trump’s revised court charges to energise the campaign

US special counsel Jack Smith has issued revised charges against former president Donald Trump for allegedly attempting to interfere in the 2020 election. This follows last month’s historic and widely criticised Supreme Court ruling that offered presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

The four criminal counts against Trump, all of which he denies, remain the same: conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. But there is one major change.

In this amended filing, Smith is charging that Trump was acting as a political candidate and not in his capacity as a sitting president. It appears unlikely the case will proceed before November’s presidential election.

Trump’s campaign team are already trying to use the media attention as an opportunity to shift the narrative to the idea that Trump is an eternal victim of a weaponised Biden-led justice department. They want to get back some of the news media time that has been focused on Kamala Harris since she stepped up as Democratic presidential candidate.

On social media, Trump posted that the Department of Justice was engaging in electoral interference. Trump will try to capitalise on his perceived victimhood to generate more campaign funds, at a time when his campaign appears to have been losing ground and his most recent gimmick was to sell digital trading cards.

Trump certainly needs to generate more energy around his campaign to start raising more money. It has only raised US$268.5 million (£203 million) in 2024 thus far, with Harris’s campaign almost doubling this effort. Trump’s team is hoping that these new charges will help with that.

With the exception of the verdict in the hush-money case in Manhattan where Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in May of this year, most of Trump’s criminal cases have gone his way. In July, a Florida judge dismissed allegations that the former president had kept classified documents at his Florida home.

Possibly even more important for Trump, his criminal trials have not had a significantly negative impact on his polling. During the Republican primaries the indictments seemed to help Trump considerably grow his lead over Republican rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

Much of the reason for this was because most Republicans saw the indictments as politically motivated. Polling from June of 2023, demonstrated that 61% of Republicans claimed the indictments made no difference in the way they viewed Trump, while 14% said that it made them view him more positively.

After Trump was convicted in the hush-money trial, only about 50% of Americans polled approved of the verdict, and only a small number of voters claimed that the verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

In addition to not moving the meter very much, the guilty verdict gave Trump’s beleaguered campaign a huge financial boost. While he was well behind then candidate Biden’s campaign fundraising in the first half of 2024, within 24 hours of the guilty verdict, Trump gained US$53 million in contributions. Overall, the Trump campaign raised US$141 million in the month of May, almost twice of what was raised in April.

Shifting momentum

What political impact might this latest revised charges against Trump have? This is all coming at a time when Trump is desperately trying to shift the momentum in his favour.

Since Kamala Harris took over the Democratic presidential campaign in July, she has managed to raise whopping US$540 million. In addition to successful campaign stops that attracted thousands of supporters, Harris has benefited from an energetic Democratic convention, at which she drew stark distinctions between herself – a public prosecutor – and Trump – a convicted felon.

This is a dynamic that is certain to play out at the first presidential debate on September 10, assuming it goes ahead.

Trump, meanwhile, has struggled to define Harris, rambling that she is a communist, calling her “crazy”, calling her “dumb”, and making fun of her laugh.

The Democrats have in turn, pivoted from relentlessly sounding the alarm on the threat that Trump poses to democracy, and started to also ridicule him. While calling him a fascist authoritarian did not seem to bother him that much, making fun of him has made him look weak – and has gotten under his skin.

This new indictment revives the image that Trump is a convicted felon, with criminal and autocratic ambitions. The overall impact on voters is likely to be minuscule at this point. But even if it causes a small percentage to turn against him in key swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, it could still make a difference.

As mentioned, past polling suggests the indictment might have a marginal impact for those that have not decided yet.

As far as the effect of these revised charges on mobilising voters goes, Republicans have already found plenty of reasons to rally around Trump. In addition to his various legal issues, his assassination attempt motivated Trump’s base, some of whom believe “God spared him”.

Meanwhile, Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, is not letting the opportunity pass. He has taken a dig at the special counsel Jack Smith (an independent with no party affiliation) saying he “should be ashamed of himself and it’s one of the reasons why we have to win, because he should not be anywhere near power”.

Given that there will be no trial before election day, these revised charges give Trump even more motivation to ensure that he wins, after all as president he would be able to order officials to drop all charges.

Sources:

▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in PUBLIC SQUARE UK on 29 August 2024. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/Gage Skidmore. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)