-The lawsuit against former President Donald Trump has divided American society in two, but he seems to have increased his chances of being named the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2024 elections. Evidenced by the results of a sociological survey conducted by Ipsos commissioned by the Reuters agency and published Thursday evening.
The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday after Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
According to the poll, 49% of Americans support the opening of the first-ever criminal case against a current or former US president.
This highlights the political division in society on many issues related to Trump. Some 84% of Democrats said the allegations had merit, while just 16% of Republicans agreed with the claim.
About 40% of Republicans said the anti-Trump case increases their chances of voting for the former president in 2024. Only 12% of Republicans take the opposite view. 38% said the process would not affect their voting choices.
Trump leads the Republican nominee by a wide margin, with 58% of Republicans considering him the preferred candidate. That’s more than 48% of Republicans in a poll released by Reuters on Monday.
Florida Governor Ron Decantis, who has yet to announce his participation in the primaries, is in second place with 21%.
While Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided over the case, the poll found that 73% of Americans, including 55% of Republicans, believe Trump did in fact pay money to silence porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal.
However, 76% of Republicans believe some law enforcement officials are trying to delegitimize Trump through politically motivated investigations, while only 34% of Democrats agree with this view.
About 51% of all respondents, including 18% Republicans, believe that as a result of the charges Trump should lose the right to run for president again.
1004 Americans took part in the survey, the confidence interval for all the respondents is 3.8% and 6.3% for the 368 Republicans who took part in the study.
