JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The indictment of former President Donald Trump is not only unprecedented, but it could have major implications in the 2024 Presidential Election, particularly in the Republican Primary.
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UNF political science professor Dr. Michael Binder said for any other campaign, a criminal indictment would be a death blow, but it could have opposite impact for Former President Donald Trump.
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“He’s fund-raised millions of dollars off of this already. He is using it as an example of the political witch hunts that he envisions being shoved upon him and this is going to be probably a big talking point of his campaign,” Binder said.
It will be a particularly dicey subject for Trump’s GOP Primary challengers to navigate, and already the response from the field has been diverse, ranging from full-throated defense to outright condemnation.
Notably, Governor Ron DeSantis in a Tweet called the indictment a ‘weaponization of the legal system’ and declared Florida won’t assist in any extradition request.
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“It’s going to be tricky for DeSantis to walk that line of kind of hugging Trump, but then on the flipside, he’s gonna have to come back and compete against him in these primary elections and he’s going to have to be pointing to all the chaos around Trump,” Binder said.
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DeSantis already made headlines last week, when he took a jab at Trump after news of the impending indictment broke.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said.
The comment sparked mixed reactions among Republicans, and Binder said if DeSantis overplays his hand, he risks losing support of some Republican primary voters.
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“I think that’s a tricky, tricky path to walk and those rocks that they’re balancing on can become very slippery very quickly,” Binder said.
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As far as the polls are concerned, Trump is still the favorite in the Republican field, holding a nearly 17-point lead over DeSantis according to RealClear Politics’ current polling average.