Even out of office, Donald Trump cannot stop making history. His unprecedented indictment in New York this month on 34 felony counts related to paying hush money to a porn star joins a long list of dubious historical firsts: Along with being the only U.S. president to get impeached twice, and the only one to lose the popular vote two times, Trump is now also the first president to face criminal charges.
What's even more remarkable: Despite all his political baggage and mounting legal problems, early polls show Trump remains the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—by a wide margin. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is undeclared but widely expected to run, remains a distant second in recent polls. No one else is close.
"Right now, it's President Trump's to win or lose," Scott Walker, the former Republican Wisconsin governor who ran for president in 2016, tells Newsweek.
If Trump defies political gravity yet again and wins the nomination, it could set up a rematch with President Joe Biden that would have enormous implications for U.S. policy at home and abroad. A Trump victory in the 2024 Republican primaries could also have lasting consequences for the political right—and democracy—in America, as well as ushering in a new era in which criminal charges are not viewed as a disqualifier for serious presidential contenders.
Trump's indictment has already broken political norms, injecting a major element of uncertainty into the Republican primary race. With the first contests still more than nine months away, the impact on Trump's quest for a third straight nomination won't be known for a while. But Republican Party insiders, strategists and other political experts point to three key factors shaping the race that will be critical to watch in the months ahead: whether Trump gets indicted in the other investigations he's facing related to election interference and his handling of classified documents; who wins the all-important money race in the primaries; and how big the field of GOP contenders grows before voting starts next year.
Of those three factors, most Republicans agree Trump's legal problems are the single biggest question mark hanging over the outcome.
"If we're talking about multiple indictments, electability is going to become a very serious issue," Brian Seitchik, a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign official, tells Newsweek. "Is it possible that all this stiffens [Trump's] base? Absolutely. But it does nothing to bring back the college-educated Republicans we've lost in the last half-decade. It pushes them further away."
The very real possibility that Trump could win the Republican nomination—with one or more indictments clouding his campaign—and then lose the White House again has spurred some Republicans to urge the party to break from Trump once and for all.
"The cold political argument is, Trump is a loser," John Bolton, who served as National Security Adviser under Trump and is considering running for president, tells Newsweek. "He lost the 2018 elections for us, he lost the 2020 election, he lost the 2022 elections, [and] he'll lose in 2024."
Yet as they follow Trump's comeback attempt with growing alarm, critics on the right are powerless to intervene. Seven years after Trump's improbable victory in 2016, the Republican National Committee (RNC), party leaders in Washington D.C., state parties and big donors have less control of the presidential nomination process than at any point since the creation of the modern primary system in the 1970s. They've been equaled, if not supplanted, by the rising influence of small-dollar online fundraising, ultra-rich super PAC benefactors and a right-wing media ecosystem that fuels deep distrust in institutions from local school boards to the RNC.
"The fact is, the Republican Party really doesn't exist right now. It's not a party of ideas anymore. It's a party of fealty to Donald Trump," Seitchik says. Even with his legal issues, "there's really very little the RNC or the committees or Washington Republicans can do to stop him. He has a base of support that is rock solid."
Will that support continue to hold up in the coming months, through the nominating process and into the general election? How events play out in the three key areas shaping the race will provide the best indication.
Trump's Mounting Legal Troubles
Trump wore a dark scowl when he appeared in New York State Supreme Court on April 4, where he pled "not guilty" to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges stem from Trump's role in making a $130,000 payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election so that she would not go public with claims they had an affair. While Trump sat stone-faced through his arraignment, his supporters, including Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, protested outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan, turning the event into a battle cry for Trump's 2024 campaign.
The spectacle underscored the challenge other Republican candidates face as they try to make inroads with the segment of the party that remains devoted to Trump. In a poll taken the day news of the indictment broke, 52 percent of potential GOP primary voters backed the former president. DeSantis, who finished second with 21 percent, was the only other Republican in double figures. Trump has led DeSantis by an average of 19 points in polls over the past month—and that lead has grown along with the former president's legal problems.
Trump's frontrunner status in the primaries appears to be safe for the time being, so long as he does not face more criminal charges. But the consensus in Republican circles is that additional indictments would drastically reduce Trump's already-slim chances of winning the White House, assuming he survives the primaries.
"This creates a rallying effect among Republican primary voters," Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, tells Newsweek. "It probably helps Trump in the primaries. But it would hurt him in the general election."
Trump faces three other criminal investigations, in addition to the one led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating Trump's efforts to overturn Biden's victory in the state in the 2020 presidential election. The Department of Justice has two ongoing criminal investigations into Trump, one focused on his election interference and role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and another on his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
The former president's potential criminal exposure in those investigations is difficult to assess right now, because it will depend on the nature of the charges brought against him, if any are, legal experts say. It would also be a mistake to discount the severity of the actual charges Trump is already facing, says Jerry H. Goldfeder, a veteran New York State elections lawyer.
"It's extremely serious," Goldfeder tells Newsweek of Trump's indictment. Bragg "would never bring a case unless he thought it was 100 percent valid, and that he had an excellent chance of proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt."
Still, there is no doubt additional indictments would put Trump in significantly greater legal peril, regardless of what the specific charges are, says Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"The more indictments there are," Gerhardt says, "the greater chances there are that one of them is going to land."
Additional indictments would draw Trump's attention further away from the primary race, several sources said. More criminal charges would require Trump to return to court, sucking up valuable time that could be spent on the campaign trail. The time devoted to his legal defense could also create the perception that Trump is not fully focused on his campaign. The New York case alone "could take at least a year-and-a-half. That's just the trial," Gerhardt says. "If Trump is convicted, there'll be appeals. This is not going to end anytime soon."
As Trump gears up for a long fight, there is no evidence his supporters are planning to jump ship if his legal troubles deepen. Trump's seemingly unshakeable grip on the Republican Party has as much to do with a fundamental change in conservative politics as it does with Trump himself. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Republicans in Congress dropped their support for Richard Nixon, leading him to resign to avoid impeachment. Today, Republican lawmakers who backed Trump in both of his impeachments are portraying his indictment as yet another symbol of the corruption and political "weaponization" of government.
"Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a statement the day Trump was indicted. The House Freedom Caucus called the indictment "an outrageous and unprecedented escalation in the radical left's war on their political enemies."
The attacks on Bragg are a stark reminder of the Republican Party's shift away from traditional law-and-order conservatives like Nixon and its embrace of outsider, populist firebrands like Trump and Greene, historians and longtime political observers say.
"It's a turning point for the country and the office of the presidency, and obviously also for the Republican Party," says Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "Given his ability to sway public opinion and votes, it would not surprise me in the least that Trump would get the nomination," Perry adds, no matter how much legal trouble he's in. "We are in uncharted territory, historically, legally and politically."
Who Will Win the Money Race?
Trump and his Republican opponents will need sizable war chests to sway public opinion in the fight for the GOP nomination. Here, too, Trump's indictment may help him in the short run in the primaries—though any benefit would likely disappear in the general election.
The Trump campaign raised some $7 million in the first three days after he was indicted, according to a tweet from senior campaign advisor Jason Miller. The average contribution during the first day was just $34. More than 25 percent of the contributions came from individuals who had never donated to a Trump campaign. Trump also raked in $1.5 million in the three days after he first announced publicly that he would be indicted.
The windfalls highlighted the rising importance of small-dollar digital fundraising in elections. The number of "small" donors—those who give less than $200 per contribution—skyrocketed from 50,000 in the 2006 election cycle to 12 million in 2020, according to a comprehensive study led by the Harvard Business School. The Democrats and Republicans' main digital platforms for small-dollar fundraising, ActBlue and WinRed, accounted for 40 percent of all campaign contributions to committees in 2020, up from 2.9 percent in 2012, the Harvard study found. According to the watchdog group OpenSecrets, small donors made up 38 percent of Biden's campaign contributions and 45 percent of Trump's.
"It's a whole new era. Small-dollar donors have a much bigger impact than they've had in the past," Scott Walker says. "It doesn't mean that it's not helpful to have other supporters. But particularly in a presidential election, those who can activate that kind of [small-dollar] grassroots support have a good chance."
This phenomenon helps explain why efforts by traditional, big-dollar Republican donors to block Trump's candidacy have fallen flat. The day after Trump announced his campaign last November, Andy Sabin, a billionaire who contributed to Trump's failed reelection bid, told the New York Post that he "wouldn't give him a f—ing nickel" in 2024. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and other prominent Trump donors quickly followed suit, while other Republican donors, including Don Tapia—a businessman and former U.S. ambassador to Jamaica under Trump—said they'll back DeSantis.
As recently as two decades ago, the exodus of wealthy donors to DeSantis would have been ruinous for Trump's campaign. Now the damage to Trump, at least in the primaries, may be limited.
The general election, on the other hand, could present serious challenges for Trump on the fundraising front. Biden's campaign raised more than $1 billion in 2020, far outpacing Trump's $773 million haul. Pro-Biden outside groups also outraised Trump's allies. Biden would likely win the money race again because Trump would alienate many women, voters of color and other key constituencies, Democrats argue.
"I could fund a presidential campaign if I had a nickel for every woman in a focus group who said I like some of Trump's policies, but I just don't like the way he carries himself," Celinda Lake, one of the Biden campaign's top 2020 pollsters, tells Newsweek. "And I don't think that's going to change."
A third straight presidential election cycle with Trump as the GOP nominee would serve as a "powerful motivation for donors" on the left, Aubrey Montgomery, a Democratic fundraiser, tells Newsweek. "We don't have to envision what a Trump presidency might look like," she says. "We have years of experience of how catastrophic it was for democracy."
Republicans privately concede that Biden's fundraising advantage would likely be even greater in a general election rematch—another reason why many in the GOP establishment worry about Trump's odds of taking back the White House if he wins the nomination. Still, several sources say Trump should not have any difficulty financing a primary campaign, despite his slower-than-expected start. Trump's official campaign and related committees raised just $9.5 million in the first three months after launching his 2024 run; in contrast, Trump raised $40 million in the first three months after he officially launched his 2020 reelection campaign.
But his fundraising has picked up, thanks to the indictment, and he's also likely to receive significant outside help. Make America Great Again Inc., the main pro-Trump super PAC, started the year with $54 million in the bank, money that can be spent blanketing primary states with ads bashing his opponents. (The super PAC received a $60 million transfer from another pro-Trump committee in a move critics say violated campaign finance rules). Trump could also dip into his own fortune to help fund his campaign, something he did in both of his past presidential runs.
The primary season is barely underway, but one thing is already clear, Republicans involved in 2024 fundraising tell Newsweek: Trump and DeSantis will have enough resources to compete. Whether there's enough money for the rest of the field, from both small and big donors, remains to be seen.
"Anybody considering running has to have the ability to raise enough money to make it through. That's a big concern," Larry Hogan, the former Republican Maryland governor who left office in January and considered running for president in 2024, tells Newsweek. "I've had discussions with a lot of the potential candidates. I think some are seriously considering [running]. And some are going to opt out."
The Size of the GOP Field
How many Republicans ultimately challenge Trump for the nomination will also be critical to his success—or failure. In 2016, the last open Republican presidential primary race, the GOP field swelled to 17 candidates. Support was split among the top contenders and Trump was able to win the first three primary contests with less than 40 percent of the vote. Hogan and other Republicans argue the bigger the field becomes this year, the easier it'll be for Trump. The former president's early entry into the race last year froze the field in place, and so far other Republicans have been slow to join him.
Just three have officially entered the race: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump; the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy; and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who announced his intention to run a few days after Trump was indicted. Besides DeSantis, the shortlist of Republicans who are reportedly considering running includes former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as Bolton, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, among others.
Hutchinson briefly attracted notice by calling on Trump to end his campaign, saying that his indictment was "too much of a sideshow and distraction." But the comment was drowned out by the circus-like atmosphere around Trump's arrest. As other candidates get in the race they'll find it won't be easy to compete with Trump for media attention, Mackowiak says.
"He's going to suck up all the oxygen for the next several months," Mackowiak says of Trump.
Beyond that prediction, Republicans acknowledge it's still way too early to guess how the rest of the primary field will shake out. The first GOP primary debate won't take place until August. The Iowa Republican presidential caucuses are in early February. By the time voting began in 2016, Walker, who was considered a top candidate when he entered the race, had already bowed out, and other top Republicans like former governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Jeb Bush of Florida were headed for early exits.
Similar surprises could be in store. An as-yet undeclared Republican could take the primaries by storm. Or Trump could underperform. Or perhaps DeSantis, who has never run a national race, might fall short of the lofty expectations supporters have for him. But most party insiders and nonpartisan analysts believe the race will come down to Trump and DeSantis, with room perhaps for one more candidate.
Whomever Trump's top challengers turn out to be, they'll have to figure out how to beat him without alienating his supporters, says political science professor Dennis Goldford at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. "You can't get elected with them alone, but you can't get elected without them, either."
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign with an interview request, which was declined. The Haley campaign did not respond to a Newsweek request for comment.
With the field still up in the air, policy differences are only just starting to emerge. Most potential candidates haven't settled on an ideological lane, though DeSantis has an established political brand as a culture warrior unafraid to take on the left over controversial social issues. DeSantis is widely believed to be waiting to make his announcement until after the Florida legislative session ends in early May. But multiple Republican sources say the DeSantis camp also thinks that the longer he waits the worse Trump's legal problems will get, making it easier for the Florida governor to make the case that he is the best drama-free alternative to Trump.
DeSantis has mostly avoided criticizing Trump while playing the waiting game. But Republican strategists and those who considered running in 2024 or are still weighing a primary race tell Newsweek holding off on confronting Trump may backfire.
"The thing to avoid in 2024 for all Republican candidates is: Don't make the mistake that candidates made in 2016," says Bolton. "Don't go after each other thinking that ultimately if you can just be left standing that you'll be able to go after Trump. You've got to go after Trump. We've got to finish Trump off politically, the sooner the better."
That is easier said than done.
"The power centers of the Republican Party have wanted to move past Trump for a while. Now they have a chance," one Trump ally, who asked not to be named in order to offer a candid assessment of the primary race, tells Newsweek. But the source also notes that their preferences don't carry the same weight as they did in the past. The more opposition he faces, the more motivated Trump will be to win, the source adds, saying, "I think this is comfortable ground for Trump to fight on."
Others say conservative voters are more likely to support Trump if the establishment powers urge them not to, whether it's because of his indictment or any other reason. "The American people, and especially Republicans, don't like being told who to vote for," says Cindy Costa, a member of the Republican National Committee from South Carolina. If GOP voters think that party leaders in Washington are trying to block Trump from winning the nomination, Costa adds, "it's not going to go well."
That hasn't stopped Trump's Republican critics from pointing to his legal problems and urging the party to move in a new direction—even if their pleas are falling on deaf ears. At this point, Hogan says, "Trump being our nominee would be disastrous for the party and the country."
