Donald Trump verdict fires up Republicans, grassroots donors

Former President Trump is guilty verdict in his trial in New York, Republican enthusiasm is rising as his base rallies around him following Thursday’s historic verdict.

Trump’s political allies spoke out in force across the airwaves and social media, while grassroots supporters dug into their pockets. The Republican Party fundraising website WinRed even seemed to crash after the verdict.

The enthusiasm could be a sign that a legally devastating outcome for Trump could be a political boon that would help unify a fractured Republican Party by November.

“You can’t tell me that doesn’t drive that unlikely, low-propensity voter into a frenzy and into a state where they’re more inclined to get involved in elections,” said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist. “This will boost turnout, and I think it will also boost people who don’t follow politics.”

“That’s not good news for Joe Biden and it’s probably good news for Donald Trump, within this context of addition and subtraction,” he said.

Trump saw an immediate boost from his supporters when he raised about US$35 million since the verdict, announced his campaign on Friday. The campaign said 29.7% of donors were new to the WinRed platform, signaling new popular interest in Trump.

In one of the clearest signs that the ruling could unify Republicans, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) came to Trump’s defensestating that the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braga He should never have brought the case and predicted that the conviction would be overturned.

McConnell, who has a long-running rivalry with Trump, endorsed the former president after it became clear he would be the Republican nominee. But he remained silent last April when Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34 criminal charges brought by Bragg, so his decision to finally weigh in after the verdict has the potential to rally other Trump skeptics in the Republican Party.

On Friday, Trump delivered his harshest condemnation of the trial judge, Judge Juan Merchan, calling him “the devil” and classifying the trial as “rigged” and “a fraud.” These remarks followed a fundraising appeal launched shortly after the verdict was handed down, in which the former president referred to himself as “a political prisoner”.

Republican strategists say that while Trump is rightfully furious about the verdict, his remarks are part of a broader strategy to cheer up his most die-hard supporters. But strategists note that the approach could reach beyond Trump’s base.

“If Donald Trump can continue to convince voters that this was a rigged jury with a judge who should basically be a black jack dealer in Las Vegas because he’s so good at manipulating the deck, then that will be very helpful to Donald Trump. ”. said Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based GOP strategist.

“He has to be able to continue that narrative because most people who are not political supporters did not watch this trial until the verdict was read,” he continued.

Throughout the countless legal investigations and cases Trump has faced, he has said that the cases against him are, by extension, cases against his own supporters.

“I don’t think it’s a Republican base,” Roday said. “If this can happen to Trump, it can happen to anyone, because the basis of this case is ridiculous.”

Still, with so many external factors affecting the election, such as inflation, the economy, health care and immigration, it’s unclear whether the guilty verdict handed down in May will be on the minds of undecided voters in November.

“Everyone wants to make snap judgments about what this means,” said Tucker Martin, a Republican Party strategist in Virginia, adding: “We’ve literally never been here before.

“It may be that so many things are already in the pie with Trump that this doesn’t change anything,” he said.

Others question the extent to which the verdict can unite the party beyond Trump’s allies, especially considering how much support former Republican candidate Nikki Haley (SC) garnered.

“The Republican Party doesn’t have a Trump base problem, they have an independent problem and Nikki Haley getting 20 percent of the vote in the primary even when she’s no longer campaigning — guilty verdicts aren’t going to help that,” said a former -Trump transition official.

Haley, who said she would vote for Trump over Biden in November, gain 20 percent of the vote in the Maryland Republican primary, 18 percent in the Nebraska primary, nearly 22 percent in Indiana, and garnered more than 100,000 votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

But other Republicans maintain that Trump has no base problems, pointing to his lead in recent polls.

“His lead in these polls is based on fracturing the Democratic coalition and attracting new voters,” Roday said. “It’s not from the ghost vote, it’s from Nikki Haley’s vote.”

Although Haley did not respond to Trump’s verdict, other former presidential candidates have rallied around the former president, which has the potential to sway some voters who supported their candidacies.

Senator Tim Scott (RS.C.), who is on Trump’s vice presidential list, told CNN that “the best revenge is success” for Trump, and former governor Doug Bergman, another possible choice for vice president -president, he said Trump’s conviction doesn’t “make me think.”

Meanwhile, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a longtime Trump critic, suggested Friday that he is concerned about Republican Party unity following the verdict.

“To watch my party, the party of law and order, absolutely turn its weapons against the jury, against the judge, against the system and it’s not just crazy people, it’s people like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, this party has lost all the ability to think for yourself,” he said CNN.