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A Republican strategist and ally of Ron DeSantis believes that the indictment of President Donald Trump not only hurts his candidate but likely guarantees the 2024 nomination for Trump.
It comes in the wake of the former U.S. President’s indictment in which he’s been hit with a total of 37 charges for his handling of classified documents.
The strategist, speaking anonymously to Politico, believes it’s ‘too early’ to be certain what the backlash will be but that it will likely be bad news for the Florida governor and good news for the ex-president.Â
‘I suspect this clinches the nomination for him and at the least holds his polling advantage steady for the next month and stunts DeSantis’ growth,’ he said.
Another Republican strategist, this one an ally of upstart candidate and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, agrees that it ‘hurts anyone not named Trump in the short term’ but added a caveat.Â
‘At some point though, you have to think that Trump has to go down by death-by-1,000-cuts? Will that open a door for an underdog?’
Perhaps supporting the case that it helps Trump, a separate Politico op-ed said that it’s very unlikely Trump’s case ends before November 2024, keeping him active in the race.
‘Any national security case comes with additional obstacles that make a speedy trial difficult,’ wrote Renato Mariotti.Â
‘Trump’s attorneys will need to obtain clearance to review classified material, a special order will need to be entered to ensure that the material is properly protected, and there are likely going to be fights over classified material provided by the government in discovery.’
Mariotti adds that ‘the ball is in Trump’s court’ and he could essentially delay the trial for as long as he needs.
‘The end result is that the proceedings of this unprecedented case will hover over the electoral landscape through all of next year and potentially well into the administration of the next president, whoever that is.’
For DeSantis and his allies, if his strategist’s prediction that the indictment helps Trump, it couldn’t come at a worse time.
Internal polling from backers of Ron DeSantis show the Florida governor gaining ground against primary competitor Donald Trump in the first-in-the-nation primary contest state of Iowa.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced his candidacy for president in February, slammed the federal charges against Trump that are expected to be filed next week in federal court in Miami, saying it demonstrated ‘two tiers of justice’
A new Never Back Down PAC survey shared with Axios has DeSantis closing the gap between frontrunner Trump by 14 percent since his presidential announcement.
In mid-May, before DeSantis officially announced his presidential candidacy in a Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk, he earned 24 percent in Iowa polling compared to Trump’s 48 percent – a 24 percent gap.
Just a few weeks later, after he officially launched his campaign on May 24, the Florida governor earned 29 percent among likely Iowa caucus-goers against Trump’s 39 percent.
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Now the governor is in second place with only 10 percent between him and the former president, while the rest of the field falls further behind the two frontrunners.
But when the other candidates were taken out of the equation and DeSantis and Trump were put in a head-to-head matchup, the pro-DeSantis PAC found the two frontrunners are effectively tied in Iowa – compared to the governor’s 14-point deficit in mid-May.
Donald Trump left classified documents scattered across his bathroom and the Mar-a-Lago ballroom and bragged to aides about taking military secrets, according to the stunning indictment unsealed by the Department of Justice on FridayÂ
Extraordinary new photos (above) revealed in the damning filing lay out how Trump valet Walt Nauta walked into a storage room and found intelligence files on allies including the United Kingdom and Australia spilled on the floor
In one photo, the cardboard boxes are seen stacked in front of a shower curtain and next to a sink in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom. Some of Trump’s aides simply called the files ‘his papers’Â
Zooming out to the national level, polling shows DeSantis usually at least 20 points behind Trump and the rest of the field failing to reach into the double-digits.
A new CNN survey conducted the day of DeSantis’ announcement showed Trump up 56 percent to DeSantis’ 26 percent.
The new Never Back Down polling comes on the back of DeSantis’ first official campaign swing through early primary contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He will continue on to Nevada later in June.
Trump also went to Iowa last week, overlapping with the DeSantis swing.
Despite the optimistic showing from the main PAC backing DeSantis’ GOP primary bid, other polling shows that he has not earned the expected post-announcement boost.
A Morning Consult poll taken after DeSantis entered the race shows his standing only increasing by 1 percent – and still trailing Trump by 38 percent.
DeSantis started the year showing some early leads over Trump, but some pollsters claim his reluctance to announce his candidacy, and keeping one-foot in the race and one-foot out, hurt him among voters.
There are already 11 candidates in the GOP primary race. Among those actually earning some polling ground are former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and current South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Other more long-shot candidates in the running are biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Former Vice President Mike Pence filed appropriate paperwork on Monday to launch a bid for the White House – and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on the same day revealed that he will not be entering the race.
This week, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum announced their own campaigns.
Trump aide and former ‘bodyman’ Walt Nauta was indicted in the same classified documents probe after Trump announced he would be indicted Thursday night.Â
The former president could face 100 years behind bars if he is convicted of all seven charges related to mishandling of classified information, according to a report.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
