Whenever a Trump indictment happens, here’s the key political fact to remember

There’s a fact about Donald Trump that both devotees and detractors often ignore, and it’s key to understanding what likely will happen politically — and what won’t — if any of the several criminal investigations of him lead to an indictment:

Few people have ever been known so widely for so long.

How widely? In 1999, 16 years before he launched his campaign for president, almost 9 in 10 Americans already knew enough about Trump to have an opinion of him, Gallup found.

That year, Trump was as widely known as Al Gore, the sitting vice president, who was about to launch his fourth national campaign. Slightly more people had an opinion about Trump than about George W. Bush — the governor of Texas and son of a former president — who would defeat Gore in 2000.

By contrast, only about a third of Americans that year had an opinion of John McCain, who was already in his third term as a U.S. senator from Arizona and would be the GOP nominee in 2008.

As for the president at the time, almost all Americans had an opinion of Bill Clinton in 1999, the seventh year of his presidency. But as late as January of 1992, when he was already running for the job, a majority of Americans said they had never heard of him.

Well-known, never well-liked

Trump’s celebrity dates back at least to 1987 and the publication of the “Art of the Deal.” He has been among the nation’s most widely recognized people for four decades — longer than a majority of Americans have been alive.

Among presidents in the past half a century, only Ronald Reagan approached Trump’s level of near-universal name recognition before winning the White House. To find someone as widely known without a prior run for president, one would have to go back to Dwight Eisenhower.

And unlike Eisenhower (and most other celebrities), Trump has almost always inspired sharply split opinions — “master builder” versus “thick-fingered vulgarian.”

The 1999 Gallup survey, for example, found opinion about Trump divided pretty much as it’s split today: 47% of Americans viewed him unfavorably, 41% favorably. (Currently, 55% have an unfavorable view of him, compared with 41% who see him favorably, according to the average of polls maintained by FiveThirtyEight.)

If an indictment happens — a New York grand jury considering charges against Trump meets again on Monday — the long familiarity that Americans have with him will shape the political impact. The same is true of the other cases in the list of criminal investigations he faces.

The political environment around Trump has two central realities: He remains unpopular among most Americans. And he remains very popular among a large segment of the Republican Party.

The latest Monmouth University poll, released Tuesday, found that among Republican voters, 71% had a favorable view of Trump, compared with 21% who had an unfavorable one.

Like several other recent polls, the Monmouth survey also showed Trump widening his lead over his main 2024 GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appears to have faded as attention has focused back on Trump. Among all Republicans in the survey, 41% picked Trump as their favorite and 27% chose DeSantis.

Trump’s lead was especially large among the roughly 4 in 10 Republican voters who identify as strong supporters of the MAGA movement, named after Trump’s “Make American great again” slogan. MAGA backers supported Trump over DeSantis by almost 50 points, the survey found.

If New York prosecutors announce charges against Trump in their case involving hush-money payments to a porn star, that Republican viewpoint isn’t likely to shift.

The same goes for the other investigations Trump faces, including a grand jury probe in Atlanta involving alleged interference in Georgia‘s 2020 election, and two federal investigations being handled by special counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 riot and his failure to turn over documents held at Mar-a-Lago that were subpoenaed by the government.

Most Republican voters don’t trust officials of big, Democratic cities. Nor do they trust the Justice Department. And they’ve mostly made their peace with Trump’s behavior.

At least in the short term, an indictment could cause Trump’s current advantage among Republicans to grow, Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and longtime Trump critic said this week on her podcast.

“It centers all the media attention on him,” she said. “It forces all of the other candidates to rally around Trump. The whole of the Republican Party may not be in agreement that Donald Trump is the best candidate for 2024, but there is going to be broad agreement that ‘he’s being persecuted by members of the deep state and our political enemies, and therefore we must defend Trump.’”

Over time, however, the outcome of the primaries will turn on how many GOP voters say that they admire the former president but feel that it’s time for the party to move on to a leader with less baggage.

The challenge for DeSantis, as well as Trump’s other rivals, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, remains what it has always been — to convince enough GOP voters that nominating Trump will simply hand the election to President Biden.

There are clearly some voters in the party receptive to that argument. As Amy Walter, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, recently noted, multiple polls have shown a slow decline since Trump left office in the share of Republicans who view him positively — not a major shift, but a steady erosion.

No one knows whether the instinct to rally around Trump will outweigh the fear Republicans have of another lost election. We probably won’t know until the campaign is more fully engaged.

The consequences for a general election are clearer: Most Americans dislike Trump, and an indictment will not make that better.

Winning the presidency with majority disapproval is possible — Trump did it in 2016 because most Americans also disliked his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. He beat her among those who disliked both of them, and that allowed him to carry just enough states to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote.

Maybe he can do that again. But counting on that lightning to strike twice didn’t work in 2020, and barring an economic collapse or other calamity, there’s no strong reason to think it would work any better in 2024 — Biden’s current mediocre poll ratings notwithstanding.

What Trump needs in order to increase his chance for a win is to pick up new voters. An indictment might increase the enthusiasm of his core supporters, but being enthusiastic doesn’t give anyone an additional ballot, and turnout among his base is already very high.

Since the start of Trump’s political career, people on the left and the right have held mirror-image fantasies of a dramatic event causing a sudden shift in how Americans look at him.

On the left, it’s the fantasy of the silver bullet — the circumstance so damning that it causes Trump’s supporters to abandon him en masse. On the right, it’s the belief that Trump’s opponents will overstep so egregiously that Americans will rally around the former president, propelling him to majority support.

The Access Hollywood tape, Charlottesville, Jan. 6 and two impeachments should have disabused people of both ideas, but both have resurfaced as speculation about an imminent indictment has mounted.

The reality is that Americans believe they know Trump, and they definitely know what they think of him. Opinions held for so long — and in Trump’s case, so intensely — rarely change.

Suffolk University/L.A. Times poll of Los Angeles

Here are key findings from our March 9-12 poll of L.A. residents, conducted with Suffolk University’s Political Research Center:

L.A. strongly approves of Mayor Bass but is skeptical about fixing homelessness
On the eve of her 100th day in office, Mayor Karen Bass enjoys strong approval ratings among Angelenos — a reservoir of goodwill that will be crucial for the new mayor during uphill battles ahead. Half of Angelenos approve of the job Bass is doing so far, while just 14% say they disapprove. A little more than a third remain undecided, Julia Wick reports.

Younger Angelenos have far more negative view of police than elders
Angelenos are split in their views of the Los Angeles Police Department, showing a sharp generational divide on how they rate the force’s performance and on whether officers generally treat people of all races fairly, Libor Jany reports.

Is L.A. ready for the 2028 Olympics? Some residents express concern
In the six years since Los Angeles was awarded the 2028 Summer Olympics, support for hosting the massive sports event remains widespread, although it may have begun to dip, David Wharton reports. Fifty-seven percent of Angelenos believe the Games will be good for L.A. Twenty percent worry that hosting will have a negative impact on the city.

When it comes to earthquakes, Republicans and Democrats agree on L.A. retrofitting
Los Angeles residents strongly back the city’s landmark earthquake retrofit law, the poll found, despite decades of conventional wisdom that such a rule would be politically unpopular due to its cost, Ron Lin reports.

The transformation of the West

Column: From red bastion to blue bulwark: What political shift in Colorado and West means for U.S.
In the last two decades, the Republican ranks in Colorado have shrunk drastically to just a quarter of registered voters, turning the once reliably red state into a distinct shade of blue. The transformation is part of a larger political shift across the West — along the Pacific Coast, through the deserts of Nevada and Arizona, into the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado and New Mexico. Once a GOP bulwark, the region has become Democratic bedrock. That, in turn, has reshaped presidential politics nationwide, Mark Barabak writes in his column, the first in a series on “The New West.”

The latest from the campaign trail

Former Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson, potential presidential candidate, woos Orange County Republicans
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, told Orange County Republicans on Wednesday that the party needs to nominate a proven leader and consistent conservative who can win independent and suburban voters to take back the White House, Seema Mehta reports.

Newsmax returns to DirecTV after nasty dispute and censorship claims
DirecTV’s dispute with conservative network Newsmax — which turned bitter when the small channel enlisted support from Republican politicians — is ending with Newsmax returning to the programming lineups of satellite TV customers. The two companies announced a truce Wednesday after reaching a new distribution agreement that restores Newsmax to DirecTV customers’ homes this week, Meg James reports.

The latest from Washington

U.S. strikes deal with Canada over northern border, asylum seekers
The United States and Canada have struck an agreement that allows each country to turn back asylum seekers who cross the northern border without authorization, Hamed Aleaziz and Erin Logan report. The deal is the latest expansion of President Biden’s efforts to discourage asylum seekers from entering the U.S. without authorization.

TikTok CEO faces bipartisan grilling over privacy, China ties and teens
TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew faced a bipartisan baptism of fiery inquiry Thursday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, held as the platform comes under increased scrutiny from lawmakers and the Biden administration, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu reports.

Two decades after start of Iraq conflict, Congress is poised to repeal war authorization
Members of Congress are seeking to remove from the books the law that authorized the Iraq war, a step that would formally end the war and the presidential power to conduct military operations without congressional approval, Tracy Wilkinson reports.

The latest from California

‘Fed up’ California workers across industries demand more amid rising cost of living
Fast-food cooks and cashiers. Caretakers. Housekeepers. Hospital staff. School bus drivers. Custodians. State employees. Workers from all kinds of industries are demanding more in wages and benefits in order to keep up with the rising cost of living in California. They are backed by a wave of Democratic-led legislation making its way through the state Capitol — converging with ballot measures and funding requests from Gov. Gavin Newsom — to create a workers’ rights moment that seems unique even for one of the most union-friendly states in the nation, Mackenzie Mays reports.

Newsom wants to give Hollywood a big new perk. Will lawmakers agree?
Movie studios would be eligible for a long-sought perk under Newsom’s proposal to let them convert a portion of their state tax credits into cash payments, which would essentially create a government subsidy for Hollywood that California doesn’t offer to any other industry, Laurel Rosenhall reports.

Labor unions’ objections delay California investigation into wage theft system
A surprise objection by labor unions helped delay a state investigation into California’s broken system to prevent wage theft, putting pressure on Newsom to fix a backlog of worker claims and other concerns that have only worsened with years of failed efforts to fix them, Paige St. John reports.

State launches probe of cannabis licensing to ‘clean house’ of corruption
Corruption in California’s cannabis industry has become widespread and brazen. There have been pay-to-play schemes, including a demand for cash in a brown paper bag for a pot license, threats of violence against local officials, and city council members accepting money from cannabis businesses even as they regulated them. Those problems and more were uncovered by a Times investigation last year. Now state officials are launching an audit aimed at curtailing bribery, conflicts of interest and other misdeeds, Adam Elmahrek reports.

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