Of all the legal complications facing Donald Trump, state level felony charges may be the most damaging to his campaign, according to the director of UMass Lowell’s polling center.
Trump, late Monday, was named along with 18 co-conspirators in a nearly 100-page, 41-count indictment detailing their alleged violations of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO laws. The 45th President of the United States will be required to surrender himself to law enforcement authorities in Georgia by next Friday.
While it may seem like just another drop in an ocean of legal allegations against the former commander-in-chief, the case in the Peach State will bring the sort attention that Donald Trump needed to avoid if he wants to win the state this time around, according to John Cluverius, a political scientist and polling expert with the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
“It creates real electoral trouble for Donald Trump beyond a normal legal entanglement or scandal, because it will be intensely covered in state level media and local news. Voters who are sure they are going to vote, but not sure of who they will vote for, will watch closely,” Cluverius told the Herald.
In a now famous conference call held in January of 2021, in the days before the electoral college votes were certified by Congress, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and attempted to convince the elections official to “find, uh, 11,780 votes” in an attempt to move the state’s 16 electors to his side.
Cluverius said that polling conducted by the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion last year shows that while all voters view election integrity as important, the Raffensperger call means voters in Georgia have every reason to believe that Donald Trump genuinely wanted to overturn the state’s certified election results.
With Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filing charges against Trump and a potentially lengthy trial ahead, voters will get near daily reminders about the former president’s efforts, the professor said.
“It’s another reminder to Georgia voters, particularly those in the suburbs, that Trump tried to steal the 2020 election and subvert their fairly counted ballots,” he said. “Voter suppression and election subversion make affected voters extremely angry. Georgia is one of the few states with popular Republican leadership that stood up to Trump’s election lies.”
Trump, on Tuesday, took to his Truth Social platform to blast both the District Attorney and the charges. He declared he would provide evidence proving his evidence at a later date and time.
“A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey,” he wrote. “Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION! They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS.”
If Trump doesn’t manage to present exonerating evidence, his legal trouble in Georgia could spell electoral disaster, Cluverius said.
The pollster said, “In a close election, you need every vote you can get, and Georgia voters who may have given Trump a second chance before this indictment are a lot less likely to do so in the 2024 race.”