The day before California Republicans vote in the presidential primary election, former President Donald Trump has another event on his calendar: a trial date in the federal case charging him with attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.
The case is just one of multiple prosecutions the former president faces. In New York, Trump was indicted on charges involving hush money payments to a porn actress, and in Georgia, Trump and 18 others were charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump, the first former president to be charged with a crime, has denied any wrongdoing. But will all these mounting legal troubles have California Republicans looking for a different person to lead the top of the ticket in 2024?
So far, polling and interviews with several Republican voters throughout Orange County suggests no.
Some — like Will Donahue, president of the College Republicans of America — believe the indictments to be politically motivated.
“I don’t think there’s a serious case to be made in any of them,” said Donahue. “Ultimately, they wanted media sound bites to call it the ‘Trump criminal organization’ and an indictment and RICO charges allowed the media to do that.”
“I don’t think there’s legitimacy to (the indictments),” said Chapman University student Kate Robinson. “I think most people in the Republican Party recognize that which is why he’s polling way ahead of anyone else.”
Nationally, polling puts Trump the clear frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary — and it’s no different in California.
Ahead of the second presidential primary debate — to be held in Simi Valley on Wednesday, Sept. 27 — Trump is the choice for 55% of likely Republican voters in the state, well ahead of other contenders like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, according to an August UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies survey. And support has only…
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