Vulnerable Republicans are largely falling in line behind former President Donald Trump despite the danger his conviction presents to Republican control of Congress next year.
The Thursday verdict, related to Trump’s efforts to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, could shape the presidential race in unpredictable ways. The conviction might motivate turnout among Republicans but is seen as a turnoff to voters in the suburbs.
Nonetheless, vulnerable incumbents appear to be embracing the guilty verdict, hoping Trump’s claim that he is the victim of a political prosecution will resonate in their states and districts.
“This is how we are going to do politics now? Not through spirited debates, but by weaponizing the justice and court system to attack a political rival right before the election?” asked Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), who is running for reelection in a district President Joe Biden won in 2020.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, another Republican running in a Biden New York district, called the ruling a “miscarriage of justice” on Thursday, while Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) said voters aren’t interested in the partisan “games” he said were behind the prosecution.
His race moved to a toss-up following the Arizona Supreme Court ruling that a strict 1864 abortion ban is enforceable.
“This is exactly why the American public is losing faith in our judicial system,” Ciscomani said of the hush money verdict. “People want a government that protects them, is accountable and is transparent. But that is not what we saw today.”
Even before Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records, Democrats were planning to tie Republicans in swing districts to what they call the former president’s “MAGA extremism.” The strategy is credited with blunting a red wave in the midterm elections last year.
But the conviction has given them fresh ammunition to attack those Republicans, suggesting they are undermining the rule of law with their support for Trump.
“House Republicans have continued to put Donald Trump first and the American people last. Their districts deserve better than their cult-like adherence to a wannabe dictator,” Courtney Rice, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “Each and every one of them should rescind their endorsement, but won’t.”
“If House Republicans were serious about justice and upholding the rule of law,” Rice said, “they would stop throwing their support behind a convicted felon for president. Instead, we’ll hold them accountable at the ballot box in November.”
Not all Republican candidates have voiced support for Trump. In deep-blue Maryland, former Gov. Larry Hogan, the Republican nominee for Senate, urged voters to “respect the verdict.”
Meanwhile, Republicans in some cases have been able to employ the opposite tactic, pressing Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), two vulnerable incumbent Democrats in red states, for not condemning the verdict.
Whether the conviction ultimately helps or hurts Trump’s chances of winning back the presidency remains to be seen. The same can be said for the candidacies of Republicans backing the former president.
For weeks, even as the trial unfolded (and, with it, stories associating Trump with the alleged misconduct), the public polling for the presidential race barely moved.
Most voters, according to surveys, consider the New York hush money case to be less serious than the former president’s other criminal prosecutions. But the idea of voting for a felon could sway some independents and even Republicans.
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Earlier this month, a Quinnipiac University poll found that even among Trump supporters, 6% said they would be less likely to vote for him if he were convicted.
For the time being, congressional Republicans have been campaigning off the guilty verdict, with their campaign arms reporting record fundraising hauls in the hours afterward. The Trump campaign sent out a statement saying it “shattered” fundraising records by bringing in $34.8 million — almost twice as much as any single day in the past.
