The Rally ‘Round Trump Effect & What’s Next – Top 3 Takeaways – April 4th, 2023
- And we have liftoff. No, I’m not talking about a rocket at the Cape. And no, it’s not specifically a reference to Trump Force One – though my top takeaway today is about our former and perhaps future president. The liftoff I’m specifically referencing today is Donald Trump’s polling performance in Republican primary circles. The initial reaction to the indictment of Trump by Republican primary voters has been immediate and clear. Much like a country rallying around the Commander-in-Chief during a time of war, there’s no doubt a rally around “the Trump effect” is playing out playing right now as he’s set to be arraigned in Manhattan at 2:15 today. The unprecedented move by the Manhattan DA to bring charges against the former president has brought Trump to unprecedented heights in this young primary season. One that’s so young his perceived top challenger hasn’t officially entered the race. And the question may now be if he’s rethinking whether he will. Three post-indictment polls have come out with three essentially identical results. Trump with a greater than 30% advantage. In fact, Trump’s lead over DeSantis has doubled since the news broke and importantly, in the context of whether an election is potentially winnable, Trump’s polling is well above 50% in all of them. And while people and polls tend to be fickle, Trump’s supporters never had been. If it’s the goal of Democrats to have Joe Biden run against Donald Trump again, the indictment of Trump has potentially made that much more of a reality. Perhaps that was even part of the plan right along? In any event, we’re eight months away from the official start of the primary season and 18 months away from Election Day, but the initial response by Republican voters is in and it’s clear. And should Trump’s support stick through his time of perceived political persecution by a Manhattan DA more interested in “getting Trump” and making a name for himself than the rule of law, the events unfolding at the arraignment today, could be pointed to as the inflection point where he won the election. Now about that DA...
- The agenda is clear. Intellectually you know this. Anecdotally you know this. But as always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts and my declarative statement about the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, being motivated by his desire to get Trump and to make a name for himself – is evidenced by facts. Starting with this number - 52%. That’s the percentage of felony cases Alvin Bragg has downgraded to misdemeanors. And this number – 1,119. That’s the number of felony cases brought to him last year alone that he refused to even attempt to prosecute. And here’s one more for you – 462%. That’s how much less likely criminals are to serve jail time since Bragg became DA. By the way, those numbers and what they represent are all record lows for a New York City prosecutor. So, here’s someone who has refused to even pursue cases against a record number of people rung up on felony charges. Someone who has cut the majority of felony charges he has been willing to pursue to misdemeanor charges and who sees to it that almost no criminal goes to jail under his watch. So naturally that guy is the same guy who pulls the unprecedented maneuver of pursuing a felony indictment of a former president and leading presidential candidate. A pursuit which took place only after Bragg’s predecessor didn’t pursue the case and the federal government didn’t pursue the case. The agenda is clear and the fact that Alvin Bragg has acted out of purely politically motivated purposes is evidenced. This point is inarguable and for that matter he quite literally campaigned on getting Trump. Which takes us to...
- What happens next. Trump will be booked, though reportedly he’ll not be cuffed or subjected to a mug shot, he’ll plead not guilty before a judge, and we’ll get a speech from Donald Trump from Mar-a-Lago tonight. In between those three events the process to file a motion to dismiss will already be underway. As has been stated by Trump’s counsel “there’s no law that fits this”, referring to the prosecution of Trump over hush money payments. Trump’s legal team has already made it clear that’s step one. Though it’s worth noting that the case of the Trump Organization, a case which was successfully prosecuted last year by Bragg, a motion to dismiss was sought in that case and was refused. The reality with the New York legal system is that there’s really no telling exactly what will happen next and where this case will go. But while Bragg is a soft-on-crime prosecutor, he proved with the Trump Organization case, one in which the former president wasn’t a party to, that he can win a case when he wants to. Here’s a fun fact. The last time New York City voted for a Republican for president was 99 years ago. Should this come down to a jury of “peers” deciding Trump’s fate, one wonders if jurors might look past their political preferences. Trump won 22% of the vote there in 2020. The deck politically is stacked against him and the jury selection process, which is always huge in any controversial case, will be especially so this time.