Will indictment hurt Trump’s presidential campaign?

As long as Republican Party voters remain solidly behind the former president, he could still become the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and even be reelected to the Oval Office.

Donald Trump faces a legal nightmare amid the Manhattan district attorney’s historic indictment of him on criminal charges in New York. But one thing that remains uncertain is whether an indictment or conviction will politically harm the former president.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has more than two dozen indictments against the former president — including at least one felony offense — according to reports, for his actions related to business records connected to a $130,000 hush payment to an adult film star. The payment is believed to have been made to allegedly conceal an affair ahead of Trump’s 2016 presidential election.

However, contrary to what some Americans might think, an indictment or conviction for a crime does not disqualify a person from running for president.

As constitutional law experts have pointed out, the only requirements for a presidential candidate are that they be at least 35 years old, born in the United States or have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. 

Nothing in the constitution prevents Trump from pursuing a second term in the White House.

This means that as long as Republican Party voters remain solidly behind Trump, he could very well still become the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and even be reelected to the Oval Office if he manages to outperform President Joe Biden in a hypothetical second faceoff in November 2024.

“We all know that doesn’t stop him from running for president,” U.S. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a former impeachment manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021, told theGrio.

However, the delegate representing the U.S. Virgin Islands said though Trump is allowed to run for president, she believes that rather than the indictment being something that “propels him forward,” there are going to be independents and some Republicans “who want nothing to do with him even more strikingly than they presently feel moving forward.”

The Democratic lawmaker believes there are Americans who “want to turn a page on that dark part of our history and want a president who is going to be accountable for himself, bring integrity, as well as continue to work in the interests of everyday Americans,” she said, adding, “Not trying to squash legal battles that he is personally brought on himself.”

Similarly, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said Trump has “already damaged himself politically based on his behavior after the 2020 election,” referring to the former president’s false claims of voter fraud in the presidential election, the fallout of which included a deadly, violent attack on Jan. 6, 2021 on the U.S. Capitol.

Bowman also cited the results of the 2022 midterm election as evidence of Trump’s weakened political power. “When you look at the 2022 red wave that never happened, when you look at all of the endorsees of Trump and all of the MAGA Republicans that ran nationwide — most of them lost,” he said. 

Still, Trump will “still be emboldened,” he acknowledged. “He is a privileged, rich white man who was formerly a president … [and] any white men with power in America is going to feel like they are Superman and they can do and say and accomplish anything they want.”

Political consultant Shermichael Singleton, who has worked on several Republican presidential campaigns, told theGrio that news of an indictment has not stopped the Trump campaign from fundraising millions of dollars. “Not only have we seen an increase in fundraising numbers for the former president, but we’ve also seen the solidification and solidarity around him, thus boosting his poll numbers,” he said.

Singleton pointed out that Trump’s closest potential 2024 competitor in the Republican Party, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has seen his numbers decline.

Democratic strategist Alencia Johnson said the Manhattan indictment would ultimately make Trump look like a “martyr” to his base of supporters — a narrative she believes Trump welcomes. “He wants to be walked up into a courthouse with handcuffs so that he can say to them, look what they’re doing to us,” Johnson told theGrio. “He has a way of riling up his base and throwing and hiding his hands.”

Johnson also pointed out that Trump’s indictment has the ability to “rile up” Democratic and moderate voters as much as it does Republican voters. “As we saw in 2020 and the 2022 midterms, the majority of the American people, though, are tired of Trump and that gives us even more momentum to defeat him in 2024.”

Gerren Keith Gaynor is the Managing Editor of Politics and White House Correspondent at theGrio. He is based in Washington, D.C.

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