A new poll from ABC News/Ipsos, taken after Donald Trump’s fourth criminal indictment, suggests the broader American public is tired of the bombast of the former president. But we knew that already, didn’t we?
Your average person off the street is sick of Donald Trump.
But it doesn’t matter, because all Trump needs to maintain at the moment is a plurality of support among conservative Americans, which all indications suggest he will.
The New Poll Donald Trump Poll
“Early this month, 20% of Republicans said Trump should suspend his campaign and 14% said he should have been charged in the Jan.6 indictment,” ABC reported. “These results are unchanged in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, with 20% of Republicans saying Trump should suspend his campaign and 15% indicating he should have been charged in the Georgia indictment.”
The poll also tracked Trump’s favorable/unfavorable ratings; the results were not flattering: Thirty-one percent of respondents held a favorable view of Trump, 55% of respondents held an unfavorable view of Trump.
More specifically, the poll asked whether Americans want Trump out of the 2024 race. Fifty percent of respondents said ‘yes,’ Trump should suspend his campaign. “Only about a third of Americans in these polls don’t think Trump should suspend his campaign, with the rest undecided,” ABC reported. “That figure portends some struggles for Trump should he make it to the general election.”
Again, we knew all that. The polls suggest half the country wants Trump not to run. I’m going to go ahead and assume that the half of the country who wants Trump not to run is the same half of the country that associates themselves with the Democratic Party. And that Democrats don’t approve of Donald Trump is not some grand insight.
What Does It Mean for Trump?
The poll means nothing for Trump, who will proceed as recklessly and as confidently as he has for the last eight years. Trump is counting on roughly half the country hating him. He draws power from the hate. So polling data that confirms that half the country disfavors Trump, or that half the country wants Trump out of the race, isn’t going to inspire pause. It’s not going to register. Trump is dominating polls against his GOP rivals. He is the clear-cut favorite to win his third consecutive GOP nomination. The idea that Trump would drop out of the race is just wishful thinking.
Now, does the data suggest Trump will have a problem in the general election, as ABC suggests? Certainly. But again, we knew that, too. Trump has already run in two presidential elections. And on neither occasion did Trump win the popular vote. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and he lost it again to Joe Biden in 2020. I don’t think Trump is expecting to win the popular vote in 2024.
He’s just going to try and get to 270 electoral college votes before Biden does – which Donald Trump can do even if half the country hates him and wants him to drop out of the race.
Trump, for all his flaws, is nothing if not persistent. The idea that he would drop out of the race is absurd and wasn’t worth gauging with a public opinion poll in the first place.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
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