Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis conceded Sunday that the dozens of criminal charges against Donald Trump in four separate legal cases have helped the former president in polls.

Mr. DeSantis, who trails Mr. Trump by double digits in polls of GOP primary voters, argued the race for the White House should be about the future rather than grappling with legal hurdles from past actions.

“I think that gave the former president more support,” Mr. DeSantis said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of the campaign finance charges in New York against Mr. Trump for hush-money payments to women during his 2016 campaign. “I think people felt that he was being treated unfairly, which he was, in that circumstance.”

Mr. DeSantis said the 91 counts against Mr. Trump across his legal cases “highlight the weaponization of justice by some of these left-wing prosecutors” but suggested the ex-president would struggle to win the general election.

“But here’s the thing, ultimately: It’s not about the past. It’s not about all these other issues. It’s ultimately about how do you get in and reverse the country’s decline?” he said. “How do we get the country back on a strong plane, so that we lower prices for people, get the border secured, deal with crime in the inner cities? And we need a strong leader to be able to do that, someone that can win and someone that can actually bring this in.”

• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.