Don’t be too certain how Trump’s indictment will affect the election. We’ve never been here before

WASHINGTON —  Conventional wisdom has solidified fast about the 2024 election: Nothing will convince Republican voters to abandon former President Trump, a second face-off with President Biden is inevitable, the race will be close.

All that could prove true. A solid core of MAGA supporters — some 15% to 20% of the U.S. electorate — appears loyal to Trump no matter what. And after the country has divided closely between the two major parties for a generation, you don’t need a poll to tell you the next election likely will be tight.

But as Americans absorb the latest indictment that special counsel Jack Smith delivered Tuesday, accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the election results after losing in 2020, it’s worth pausing, taking a deep breath and adding caveats to the overly confident assertions about an election still 15 months in the future.

Fifteen months is a long time. At this point eight years ago, Trump remained a long-shot for the nomination, let alone the presidency. At this point in 2007, Hillary Clinton had a solid lead over Barack Obama. At this point in 1991, Bill Clinton was still two months away from even getting into the Democratic presidential race.

And at no point in any of those races did the U.S. face a situation like the one unfolding now in the aftermath of Trump’s third — but probably not yet final — indictment.

We know less than we think

Polls can tell you what voters think right now; they do so with a fair degree of accuracy, despite the doubters.

But no poll can tell you what voters will think tomorrow. The record is very clear: Polls this far in advance have almost no ability to forecast an election’s outcome: People are measurable, not predictable.

Historical analogies don’t help much either. It’s true that no presidential hopeful with a lead as large as Trump’s has lost the nomination since parties started using primaries to choose candidates. But that statement only covers about a dozen election cycles — not much of a record to support sweeping conclusions. And in any case, the multiple indictments of Trump have put the 2024 election cycle into circumstances unlike any other.

In the short run, it’s a fair bet that Republicans will continue to rally around Trump. They did so in June after the special counsel’s charges against him over his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and in April after Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg indicted him on charges of fraud related to the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels.

It’s also a near certainty that debate over Trump’s guilt or innocence will dominate the Republican campaign to the exclusion of all else. Rival candidates may try to focus on Ukraine, crime, the economy or whatever the culture-war issue of the week may be. Trump will do his utmost to force everyone to talk about his trials — his “persecution,” as he called it in a brief statement to reporters after entering his not guilty plea on Thursday.

The calendar will abet that: Trump is scheduled to go on trial in New York in late March, during the midst of the primary season. The Mar-a-Lago case is currently set to start May 20 in Fort Pierce, Fla., although pre-trial skirmishing over classified documents could delay it longer.

The election conspiracy case could come to trial earlier. The allegations involve multiple states and a large cast of characters, but the factual record is well known to both sides. And unlike the Florida case, it doesn’t have the complications of classified evidence.

Smith said in brief remarks Tuesday after the indictment was unsealed that his office would “seek a speedy trial so our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.” Trump’s lawyers have said publicly that they’ll push for a delay. The question of how quickly to proceed was a major focus of Trump’s arraignment hearing on Thursday and will be one of the first important decisions to land before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who has the case.

Trump could easily be in court in at least three criminal trials — and perhaps be convicted more than once — before the Republican primary season ends. A potential fourth case could soon join the mix, as Atlanta-area Dist. Atty. Fani T. Willis has indicated she plans to present charges to a grand jury this month involving Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Georgia.

Trump also faces three civil trials over the next few months, including a second round of the sexual assault accusation brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, who won a previous case against him in May.

Perhaps loyal GOP voters will ignore all that. Perhaps a jury will acquit Trump, allowing him to claim vindication. Perhaps if he loses a case in New York or Washington, D.C., he’ll be able to convince his party that he couldn’t get a fair trial in a big, Democratic city. Trump already has started banging that drum: On Thursday he issued a statement saying it was “impossible to get a fair trial” in D.C. and that his case should be moved to West Virginia.

Or perhaps the massive attention a Trump trial will generate will change some minds. And perhaps fatigue and the desire to focus on voters’ lives, not Trump’s, will prompt more Republicans to turn the page.

The truth is we don’t know, and neither polls nor pundits can tell us.

The conventional wisdom that Republicans will stick with Trump no matter what is based on something very real. We live in an era in which the two party coalitions increasingly have taken on the identity of warring tribes, with the vast majority of voters locked into place and viewing the other side as dangerous.

A detailed study by the Pew Research Center of who voted in the 2022 midterm elections found, for example, that only a tiny fraction of voters switched sides from the previous midterm: Among those who voted in both 2018 and 2022, just 4% of Republican voters and 6% of Democratic voters changed the party for which they voted, Pew found.

In an era of intense partisan loyalty, it’s easy for falsehoods to take root. The belief that Trump really won in 2020 and that Biden prevailed only because of fraud or invalid votes is widely shared among Republicans, despite repeated court cases and investigations by Republican officials that have shown otherwise. In the latest CNN poll, taken just before Trump’s indictment, 39% of Republicans said solid evidence proves the election was illegitimate, and an additional 30% said they have a suspicion that Biden did not win fairly. Just 29% called Biden’s election legitimate.

Research indicates that most people who express that belief aren’t just saying it, they truly believe it.

Similarly, it’s easy for Republican voters to believe that any criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated. Bright Line Watch, an academic project aimed at monitoring the health of American democracy, recently surveyed Americans about accusations against the former president. When asked about the classified documents case, more than 8 in 10 Republicans said Trump wouldn’t have been prosecuted if he were someone else.

The survey found that a large share of Republicans were willing to accept at least some of the factual allegations against Trump, but that many insisted those didn’t amount to a crime: 44% accepted that he had stored documents in unsecured locations, 38% that he had shown them to people who did not have a security clearance and 34% that he had suggested one of his lawyers hide or destroy documents.

But the group also found that the indictment has had an impact. The share of Republicans who believed Trump has committed a crime in the documents case has risen to 25%, up from 9% in October. That shift “suggests that some parts of the GOP are responsive to evidence,” Bright Line Watch said in its report.

Will that share rise further or plateau? Will Republicans react in a similar way to evidence in the election conspiracy case?

Ever since Trump entered his first presidential race eight years ago, the smart bet has been on him to survive anything. Analysts repeatedly declared him finished. Trump proved everyone wrong.

Now, the conventional wisdom has swung in the other direction, declaring that Trump’s hold on his party will never die. Perhaps so, but given how wrong we’ve been in the past, it’s time for some humility about predicting the future.

Hollywood on strike

Poll: More Americans support striking actors and writers than studios

As a bitter labor battle continues to roil Hollywood, the public is paying attention, and Americans are feeling more sympathy toward striking actors and writers than toward the studios, networks and streamers, a new poll for the Los Angeles Times finds, Josh Rottenberg reports. Nearly 3 out of 4 Americans surveyed said they were aware of the strike and 60% said they were at least “somewhat aware” of the issues in the dispute, according to the survey, which was conducted for The Times by Leger, a Canadian-based polling firm with experience in U.S. surveys.

The latest from the campaign trail

It’s on. DeSantis accepts Newsom request for debate: ‘Put up or shut up.’ ‘Let’s get it done’

A year after California Gov. Gavin Newsom threw down the gauntlet, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken it up: The Newsom-DeSantis debate is on. DeSantis accepted Newsom’s debate request during an appearance Wednesday night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. The televised event is set to take place this fall. “Absolutely, I’m game. Let’s get it done,” DeSantis said. “Just tell me when and where. We’ll do it.” According to the terms Newsom proposed, the debate would happen either Nov. 8 or 10 in one of three battleground states: Nevada, Georgia or North Carolina. It would not be held in front of an audience, but it would be broadcast live during a 90-minute segment on Fox News, Jeremy Childs reports.

The latest from Washington

Key Senate Democrats say they will preserve funding for gun violence research

Senate Democrats are confident they can preserve funding for gun violence research, a field that California scientists have long dominated, Sens. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) tell The Times. House Republicans have proposed a government spending bill that would gut funding aimed at better understanding the causes and effects of gun violence, which kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. Van Hollen, a former member of House Democratic leadership who was elected to the Senate in 2016, and Murphy, perhaps the Democrats’ most vocal proponent of gun control, say they aren’t particularly worried, Owen Tucker-Smith reports.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, other progressives to visit left-ruled Latin American nations

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of fellow progressive Democrats are heading to South America later this month on a congressional trip that will also challenge Biden administration policy in the region. An 11-member group of lawmakers and staff plan to leave Aug. 14 to meet with officials and civil society groups in the region’s three largest leftist-ruled democracies: Brazil, Chile and Colombia, Tracy Wilkinson reports.

Column: Black people presiding over the downfall of Donald Trump is poetic justice

On Tuesday, a few hours before the latest indictment of former President Trump became public, Vice President Kamala Harris was in Florida, addressing a room full of mostly Black women. “Through your faith, you have helped to make real the promise of our founding principles, not just for some, but for all,” she said at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention in Orlando. “And I’m here then to say, our nation needs your leadership once again.” Then, her voice dropping with seriousness, Harris added: “In this moment, across our country, hard-fought, hard-won freedoms are under full-on attack.” The vice president’s words now seem prescient. For those few hours later, Judge Tanya Chutkan — a woman who also has identified as being of Black and Asian ancestry — was randomly assigned to preside over Trump’s case, all but assuring a racist backlash, Erika Smith writes in her column.

The latest from California

Expanding the Supreme Court is a longshot. Why California’s Senate candidates support it

It’s been just over a year since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, allowing states to once again outlaw abortion. The decision has thrust the conservative Supreme Court into the cauldron of the 2024 election, along with its rulings invalidating affirmative action programs, climate protections, gun control laws and the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness policy. Revelations of questionable ethical behavior by some justices have further exacerbated the growing public distaste for the nation’s highest court, polls show, especially among Democratic and independent voters. None of this has been lost on the three top candidates running to replace retiring California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Benjamin Oreskes reports.

A California housing law led to thousands of new homes, report says. Why that’s not enough

One of California’s most powerful housing laws helped lead to the construction of thousands of new homes, according to a new report published Thursday, providing an early indicator of success while also highlighting the difficulty the state faces in solving its multimillion-unit shortage. Between 2018 and 2021, Senate Bill 35 has led to 156 pending and approved housing projects in California, according to an updated study published Thursday by the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Those projects total 18,215 proposed new units, Hannah Wiley reports.

California ballot proposal could make more government records public

An initiative proposed for the 2024 ballot could reform California’s public records laws and force politicians to disclose more information — a move supporters say will curb government corruption and keep voters in the know. The Government Transparency Act was filed with the California attorney general’s office on Wednesday and, if approved by voters, would require lawmakers to provide details about their meetings with lobbyists, political fundraising events and investigations of misconduct, Mackenizie Mays reports.

Column: A Democrat and Republican battled for Congress. They became unlikely friends

Democrat Ami Bera was a first-time candidate seeking a Sacramento-area congressional seat. Rob Stutzman, a longtime GOP strategist, was working to defeat him. Attacks — on the air, in newspapers, through the mail — flew like fists in an old western. Fast-forward to a recent scene at an upscale restaurant near the Capitol. Bera and Stutzman sit at a small table, smiling, tucking into a family-style dinner and sharing a bottle of wine. They toast, as friends do, Mark Barabak writes in his column.

Should California require buffer zones around new oil wells? Voters may be asked twice

Environmental justice advocates on Wednesday are expected to launch a campaign for a proposed statewide initiative to require health and safety buffer zones around new oil and gas wells, raising the possibility that California voters could see two similar measures on the November 2024 ballot, Taryn Luna reports. If environmental groups gather enough signatures for their initiative to qualify, advocates said the result of the vote would override the outcome of a referendum oil interests already qualified for the same ballot.

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