HARRISBURG, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump’s April 4 arraignment on 34 felony counts comes as his third presidential campaign ramps up.
Both allies and opponents are moving to use the charges to their advantage in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump’s team immediately tied the Stormy Daniels payout case to his campaign, calling the indictment “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
Democrats, they said, “have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”
“There are those who will accept his narrative that he’s being persecuted and not prosecuted and he’ll probably use it as a fundraising tool,” said John E. Jones, president of Dickinson College and former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
In fact, the Trump campaign said they raised more than $4 million within 24 hours of the indictment.
Down the line, though, it could cost Trump voters in the general election.
“Being indicted, however, you cast it or however you spin it as the person being indicted, can never be a good thing, politically,” Jones said.
Trump’s most serious challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, spoke in support of the former president at a conservative conference in Harrisburg over the weekend.
“Now [Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg] turns around, purely for political purposes, and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that they’re straining to convert into felonies,” DeSantis said. “That’s when you know that the law has been weaponized for political purposes.”
Those comments are part of a strategy to peel off some of Trump’s base, according to political experts.
“The way you get the MAGA votes is to be empathetic with the former president even if you may be taking him on in a political context,” said Jones.
Trump’s greatest electoral threat may be yet to come. In addition to the New York State charges, he’s facing three federal investigations concerning his handling of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago, his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and his alleged interference in the 2020 Georgia presidential election.
“As a trained investigator, my training has always been and the prosecutors I worked with, is lead with your best case and then let the others play out,” said Michael Clark, professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven and a former FBI white-collar crime investigator. “In my humble opinion, this is not the best case that I would have led with.”
Even if Trump is charged and found guilty in any of those investigations, there is no law banning felons from running for president. In that sense, a conviction would be more of a reputational hit.
Trump, however, has survived countless scandals before, so only time will tell how he weathers this one.