Former President Trump is guilty Verdict in his hush money trial in New York City, Republicans’ enthusiasm is soaring as his base rally behind him following Thursday’s historic verdict.
Trump’s political allies spoke out in vast numbers on radio and social media, while grassroots supporters reached for their wallets. The Republican fundraising website WinRed even seemed to crash after the verdict.
The enthusiasm may be a sign that a disastrous election outcome for Trump could be a political boon that could lend a hand unite the fractured Republican Party in November.
“You can’t tell me that this won’t get these low-voting, unlikely voters in a frenzy and make them more inclined to turn out,” said Zack Roday, a Republican strategist from Virginia. “It will increase turnout, and I think it will also energize people who aren’t interested in politics.”
“This is not good news for Joe Biden, but in the context of addition and subtraction, it is probably good news for Donald Trump,” he said.
Trump enjoyed immediate support from his supporters when he 35 million US dollars since the ruling, his campaign said Friday. The campaign said 29.7 percent of donors were brand recent to the WinRed platform, indicating renewed grassroots interest in Trump.
One of the clearest signs that the ruling could unite Republicans is the statement by Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky). Trump came to the rescueand stated that the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should never have brought the case to court and should have foreseen that the verdict would be overturned.
McConnell, who has long been at odds with Trump, endorsed the former president after it became clear he would be the Republican nominee. But he remained mute last April when Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges brought by Bragg, so his decision to finally speak out after the verdict could galvanize other Trump skeptics in the Republican Party.
On Friday, Trump harshly condemned the trial judge, Juan Merchan, calling him “the devil” and accusing the trial of being “rigged” and a “sham.” These comments followed a fundraising appeal launched shortly after the verdict in which the former president described himself as a “political prisoner.”
Republican strategists say that while Trump is rightly enraged about the ruling, his comments are part of a broader strategy to inflame his most diehard supporters. But strategists point out that this approach could extend beyond Trump’s base.
“If Donald Trump can continue to convince his voters that the jury was rigged and that the judge should basically be a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas because he’s so good at rigging the cards, that will be very helpful to Donald Trump,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist from Florida.
“He needs to be able to continue that narrative because most people who are not political partisans did not follow this trial until the verdict was read,” he continued.
Throughout the numerous legal investigations and proceedings Trump has faced, he has repeatedly emphasized that the proceedings against him were, in a broader sense, proceedings against his own supporters.
“I don’t think this is a Republican principle,” Roday said. “If it can happen to Trump, it can happen to anyone, because the basis of this case is ridiculous.”
However, with so many external factors such as inflation, the economy, health care and immigration influencing the election, it is unclear whether the May guilty verdict will remain in the minds of swing voters in November.
“Everyone wants to make snap judgments about what this means,” said Tucker Martin, a Republican strategist in Virginia, adding, “This has literally never happened before.”
“It could be that Trump is already doing so many things in the right direction that it won’t change anything,” he said.
Others question the extent to which the ruling can unite the party beyond Trump’s allies, especially given the robust support received by former Republican candidate Nikki Haley (SC).
“The Republicans don’t have a problem with their Trump base, they have an independent candidate and the problem of Nikki Haley getting 20 percent of the vote in the primaries even though she’s no longer campaigning – convictions aren’t going to help,” said a former Trump transition party official.
Haley, who has said she would vote for Trump instead of Biden in November, won He received 20 percent of the vote in the Republican primary in Maryland, 18 percent in the Nebraska primary, nearly 22 percent in Indiana, and more than 100,000 votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Other Republicans, however, claim that Trump has no base problem, pointing to his lead in recent polls.
“His lead in these polls is based on him splitting the Democratic coalition and winning new voters,” Roday said. “It’s not based on the ghost vote, the Nikki Haley electorate.”
While Haley has not responded to the ruling against Trump, other former presidential candidates have thrown their support behind the former president, giving them the potential to sway some voters who supported their candidacies.
Senator Tim Scott (RS-C.), who is on Trump’s running mate list, told CNN, “The best revenge is success” for Trump, and former Governor Doug Bergman, another possible running mate, said Trump’s conviction “gives me no cause for concern.”
Meanwhile, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), a longtime Trump critic, hinted on Friday that he was concerned about the unity of the Republican Party following the verdict.
“When you see my party, the party of law and order, absolutely pointing its guns at the jury, at the judge, at the system, and it’s not just lunatics, it’s people like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, that party has lost any ability to think for itself,” he said. CNN.
