The lawsuit, which was filed in New York on Wednesday and names Donald Trump and three of his adult children, has sparked new indignation on the left.
The DNC chair, Jaime Harrison, implied that New York had created the receipts for the former president by using a GIF. The presidential historian Michael Beschloss stated that he had “never seen anything even like this in history of the American Presidency.”
Republicans, though, saw the news as more of the same in the wake of Trump’s presidency. They backed Trump when the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home, and they continued to support him afterward. They saw little reason to believe that the New York case would have any political impact other than to strengthen Trump’s support among his base.
Dave Carney, a national Republican strategist based in New Hampshire, stated, “I don’t see this succeeding in terms of changing the perceptions of the president.” He is being attacked by the left, who are using all available legal and political means to do so. This is just the icing on the cake.
Trump has maintained his status in the GOP ever since his 2016 presidential campaign and has continued to do so through his post-presidency in part due to his ability to capitalise on the scandals that have surrounded him, with his brand of grievance politics energising the Republican base. An inquiry by the state attorney general led to the New York complaint. However, it was coming from a Democrat in a state that to Republicans embodied the coastal elite.
According to Republican pollster and longtime adviser Frank Luntz, “Trump is rising in the eyes of Republicans the more he is attacked.” He is an expert at using the victim card.
Another well-known Republican strategist stated that if the New York attorney general “is attempting to assure his renomination, which I wouldn’t rule out, this is a terrific way to accomplish it,”
In the New York civil claim, Trump is accused of deceiving people for a long period, including about his net worth, in an unlawful attempt to reduce his tax obligations and gain other financial advantages.
Trump faces certain reputational risks as a result of the litigation. Even prior to the announcement of the lawsuit, there had been worries within the Trump administration that the former president’s continued focus on the 2020 election and Trump’s attempt to rig it may hurt him by portraying him as a character from the past. According to polls, Republicans are open to other candidates like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024, and Trump’s support rating is declining.
The New York lawsuit likely “only further consolidates his base,” according to Republican strategist Mike Madrid, who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. However, he noted that “a lot of this information will continue to come, and this drip-drip-drip just chips away. A granite cliff can be eroded by even a single drop of water over time.
However, in the near future, the lawsuit might hurt possible Republican challengers to Trump more than he does.
John Thomas, a Republican political strategist who had been putting together a PAC to back DeSantis in 2024 but shelved those plans following the FBI raid and subsequent gathering of Republicans around Trump, stated that “all of these things are continuous presents to President Trump.”
The more the Democrats pursue him, the better it is, according to a Republican strategist who works with conservative congressional candidates across the nation. The strategist claimed that those who “held their noses and voted for Trump” were encouraging him to join the MAGA movement by repeatedly calling him a piece of sh*t, deplorable, and everything that is wrong with America. Politics is a tribal game.
He claimed that if he were giving DeSantis advice, he would advise defending Trump in the New York case while also seeking to present him as an older statesman in the party rather than a current one: If you’re Ron DeSantis, you want the MAGA voters to identify Trump as Ron Paul and you as [the younger] Rand Paul. Although he was a wonderful man once, he is no longer our leader.
Potential competitors won’t benefit much, according to an another Republican strategist who works on national elections, from focusing on Trump’s legal issues. After all, the Mar-a-Lago search last month resulted in a “rally around the flag effect” in support of Trump.
I don’t believe you should pursue him for the controversies. All people are aware of those. All you accomplish is turn the base’s hard-core members into adversaries, the strategist claimed. “The only strategy for defeating him is to portray him as a loser. Basically, you have to say, “I love everything you did.” I adored the rule. You’re a terrific choice to jolt the nation, in my opinion. However, you managed to lose the White House, the Senate, and the Congress in just four years, which is unprecedented.
The key measure of Trump’s viability before 2024 is likely to be how that record performs in November rather than the New York litigation. The general election campaigns of numerous U.S. Senate candidates he helped win primaries are in jeopardy after a primary season in which Trump intervened across the electoral map.
Dick Wadhams, a longtime party strategist and the former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, said, “I think we’re going to have to watch how this election turns out.” “I think that will probably cost Trump long term,” said the author. “Because if we lose a lot of Senate seats, or House races for that matter, that we should have won, and that can be connected back to the emerging of Trump once again as such a dominant character in this midterm election campaign.”
Earlier this year, Thomas came to the conclusion that “Trump’s going to be the nominee if he wants it, unless we get wiped out in the midterms and a lot of Trump’s candidates lose,” Thomas said.
In other words, that calculation is unrelated to the legal dispute in New York.
Thomas guessed that some people were thinking, “This is the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back.” “I really cannot see that.”