Trump seizes the headlines again

Establishment Republicans hoping that an arrest and indictment of Donald Trump will be the nail in his political coffin should prepare to be disappointed.

In what was clearly a calculated move, Trump preemptively announced on Truth Social last weekend that he would be indicted and arrested in New York last Tuesday in relation to a grand jury investigation into his improper use of business finances to make a campaign-related hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

While Trump still has yet to face charges as of this writing, the former president and current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination is using his legal woes to raise money, rally his base and encourage his supporters to protest.

Speculation about the indictment ultimately puts Trump back in the spotlight, and gives him a springboard to run his preferred type of campaign, one centered on his personal grievances and largely devoid of policy, where he can position himself as a victim of the political establishment.

Since Trump’s post over the weekend, he has raised a reported $1.5 million, and there has been an outpouring of support for him within the GOP. Prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, rushed to Trump’s defense, labeling the impending indictment a political prosecution. Even Trump’s potential competitors for the nomination, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who has broken with Trump a number of times, criticized the investigation.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the current second-place candidate for the nomination, and the target of Trump’s latest tirades, also slammed progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, describing him as “a Soros-funded prosecutor” who, like others, “weaponize their office to impose a political agenda.” Criticizing Bragg and other progressives is red meat for Republicans, and DeSantis likely went on the attack in hopes that it would endear him to the party’s base, which largely still backs Trump.

DeSantis certainly didn’t offer full-throttled support for Trump, and even took a veiled swipe at him when asked about the specifics of the case. “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 can’t speak to that,” he quipped when asked about it this week.

Recently, at his rallies and on social media, Trump has lambasted DeSantis, who the former president has admitted is his only real competition for the nomination. Trump has attacked his ex-protégé for his “disloyalty,” slammed him for previously supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare, called him a “RINO” (Republican in name only), and promoted unsubstantiated, lewd claims about DeSantis’ past.

The relentless barrage of attacks Trump has unleashed, which have gone largely uncontested by DeSantis, have only hurt the latter’s standing in the polls. Support for DeSantis is at the lowest levels since December, and he now trails Trump 54% to 26% in a full field primary, per Morning Consult’s GOP primary tracker.

To be sure, DeSantis knows he will not benefit — and in fact, could suffer, as many Republicans did during the 2016 campaign — by attacking Trump personally, which could explain his hesitancy to retaliate up until this point.

But last week, in a sit-down with Piers Morgan, DeSantis attempted to draw an implicit contrast with Trump, offering his sharpest criticism to date. The Florida governor described himself as an electoral winner, rather than a name-caller and social media warrior, a clear reference to Trump. He also criticized Trump for not firing Dr. Anthony Fauci, even taking the former president to task for awarding Dr. Fauci a presidential commendation medal as one of his final acts in office.

Although DeSantis’ attacks were mild by Trumpian standards, they represent a step up for the normally restrained governor. Even so, DeSantis’ interview was overshadowed completely by news coverage on Trump’s looming indictment. As the case unfolds further, we can expect that it will take more and more attention away from DeSantis, who at one point was being lauded as the GOP heir apparent.

Trump also benefits from the fact that the Manhattan probe has the weakest legal basis of the four ongoing criminal investigations into him. Prosecutors will be relying on an untested legal theory, as well as testimony from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and a convicted felon. In turn, even some of Trump’s most prominent critics believe it to be a frivolous case, as the FEC and federal prosecutors previously declined to pursue it.

After the midterm elections — when Trump-backed candidates underperformed or lost their races, while DeSantis won by a historically wide margin — most predicted that an indictment of Trump would leave Republicans with no choice but to make a clean break from him, while embracing DeSantis.

Yet every public poll that has tracked the Republican primary race over the last two months has shown Trump gaining ground, and DeSantis losing ground, even as DeSantis makes every effort to mimic Trump’s right-wing populist positions and style. Given the recent groundswell of support for Trump within the GOP as his indictment looms, we have every reason to believe that trend will continue.

Donald Trump has once again found a way to own the narrative, and if he is able to seize on the momentum from the Manhattan DA investigation and solidify his current position in the polls, he may be able to secure the nomination without much resistance.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.