A lot of people are saying that the indictments of Donald Trump have had the perverse effect of increasing his support among Republicans--for example, in the New York Times, Rich Lowry says "it’s not that he’s winning despite the indictments; it’s almost as though he’s winning because of the indictments." The main piece of evidence is that his lead in the polls about the Republican nomination have increased since about the time he started getting indicted (the first was on March 30). But is that because he's become more popular, or because his leading opponent--Ron DeSantis--has become less popular? I looked for polls asking people if they had a favorable or unfavorable view of Ron DeSantis. The figure shows percent favorable minus percent unfavorable for all of the surveys that are available:
It's hard to say what was happening through mid-2022, since three surveys taken within a few days of each other in July 2022 gave very different results. However, if we start in September 2022, there's a clear pattern--first a rise until late 2022/early 2023, and then a decline. The fact that the recent decline has been so steady suggests that it's not the result of any single factor. Whatever the cause, it suggests that Trump's increasing lead may be because DeSantis is getting less popular, not because Trump is getting more popular.
These results are all from general national samples, not samples of Republicans. I would limit it to Republicans if I could, but the breakdowns aren't available for most of the surveys. However, it's safe to say that very few Democrats have ever had favorable views of him, so that the changes are almost entirely among Republicans and independents.
Of course, there are also surveys about favorable vs. unfavorable views of Trump--the reason I looked at DeSantis first is that there aren't as many about him, so it's a more manageable job. I'll look at changes in approval of Trump in a future post.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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