Donald Trump indictment already shaping 2024 presidential contest

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s arraignment in a Miami federal courthouse last Tuesday provided a glimpse of the dynamics taking shape before the 2024 GOP primary.

The 37-count federal indictment against Trump, the first for a former president, appears to have only helped his campaign fundraising and so far has not hurt his polling numbers, which repeatedly show him leading the growing pack of GOP presidential candidates.

At the same time, the Republicans in the race are split over how to approach the controversies surrounding Trump. Their responses have ranged from condemnation of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials to not mentioning him at all, but instead attacking the U.S. Justice Department’s special counsel for bringing an indictment.

Michael Dawidziak, a Bohemia based Republican strategist who worked on the presidential campaign of the late President George H.W. Bush, said while Trump continues to harness social media and traditional media to try to rally his supporters in the face of controversy, it remains to be seen how his legal challenges will impact his third presidential bid.

The first Republican primary debate is scheduled for Aug. 23 and it's not clear if Trump will participate amid a swirl of legal battles such as the federal case brought last week by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

There is also the 34-count felony indictment delivered by a Manhattan grand jury in April related to Trump’s alleged attempts to conceal hush money payments to silence allegations of infidelity before the 2016 election. Trump also faces a probe in Georgia by the Fulton County district attorney’s office into his alleged attempt to influence the outcome of the state’s 2020 election results. Also, Smith is continuing his investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. 

“This is a candidate who’s under indictment for very serious charges … so I don’t know how this act plays outs,” Dawidziak said. “He’s facing charges that the rest of us would be sweating about.”

Here are four ways Trump’s federal indictment already is shaping the GOP presidential primary:

Republicans split on response

As in the 2016 Republican primaries, the 2024 GOP candidates are split over how to respond to the scandals surrounding Trump.

Most primary contenders have criticized the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump, but only some have directly criticized Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley called Trump’s actions “incredibly reckless.” The next day, amid backlash from Trump supporters, Haley softened her position, saying on a conservative radio program she stood by her statement but would “be inclined in favor of a pardon,” if Trump were convicted and she were president.

“It would be terrible for the country to have a former president in prison for years because of a documents case,” Haley said last week.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has cast himself as the only candidate willing to confront Trump head-on, said Trump’s treatment of top secret documents was “indefensible.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence did not take direct aim at his former running mate. Pence told reporters he hoped prosecutors would meet the "high standard" for taking the "unprecedented" step of indicting a former president.

At a campaign stop in North Carolina, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused the Justice Department of applying a “different standard” of justice to Democrats and Republicans. But DeSantis, a former Naval officer, also remarked, “If I would have taken classified [documents] to my apartment, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) at a campaign event last Monday, said the documents' indictment was a “serious case with serious allegations.”

Long shot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, speaking outside Trump’s arraignment hearing in Miami, said he would pardon Trump if elected and called on others to take the same pledge.

Dawidziak said most in the GOP field of candidates are speaking cautiously because they don’t want to "alienate" Trump’s base.

“They want to be able to inherit that base … should he have to drop out or should he not do well in the early primaries,” Dawidziak said.

Scandals lead to fundraising bump

In the two-day period after his federal indictment, Trump raised more than $7 million, according to his campaign. In the two days after Trump's indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in April, his campaign reported $7 million in donations.

The campaign said in a statement the latest fundraising haul represented a show of support from “grassroots Patriots across the nation,” noting that more than $4.5 million was raised online.

While scandals and bad news would be expected to slow fundraising by most political candidates, Trump has managed to generate record donations off the investigations and indictments that have dogged him.

He raised $46 million in the final three months of 2019 as the first House impeachment proceedings against him unfolded. He was impeached in December 2019 by majority-Democrat House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice over his alleged effort to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation into Democrat Joe Biden in exchange for U.S. financial aid. Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led U.S. Senate.

The House impeached Trump a second time for his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Campaign finance records show Trump raised $100 million between January and July 2021.

Competing for airtime

Trump’s arraignments in Miami last Tuesday and in Manhattan in April drew wall-to-wall coverage of his movements, as he boarded his personal airplane and drove down stretches of highway.

Trump’s campaign advised the media on the logistics of his travel, all but ensuring a stream of coverage.

After both his arraignment hearings, Trump delivered evening speeches from his estates, surrounded by his supporters.

The constant focus on Trump, even if involves criminal indictments, poses a challenge to the other candidates struggling through break out from the pack, said Dan Schnur, a professor of political communications at the University of Southern California who served as the national communications director for the late Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign.

“Long before he ever entered the political world, Trump understood that dominating the news would play to his benefit,” Schnur said. “Even if the coverage is unfavorable, it squeezes out anyone else who wants to have their voice heard.”

Breaking news on social media

The news of Trump’s federal indictment was announced by Trump himself, who used his social media platform — Truth Social — to broadcast that he had been notified of the indictment.

The move was typical of Trump who spent the 2016 presidential campaign garnering attention for tweets aimed at political rivals, and who spent four years in the Oval Office announcing hirings, firings and other controversies using his Twitter account.

“That’s ‘Crisis Management 101’ — if there's bad news to tell, you tell it first. Let them hear it from your lips,” said Dawidziak when asked why Trump would seek to preempt prosecutors' announcements. “Bad news is not like fine wine, it does not improve with age, get it out as fast as possible.”

Schnur, who has no party affiliation, said Trump continues to rely on social media to get his message out knowing "his social media posting would be a major part of the coverage of the indictment itself.”

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.