Trump Is “Destroying the Republican Party”: Half of GOP Voters Don’t Want Trump, According to Poll

William FurneyNov 7, 2023

Minute Read

Republican voters are falling out of love with Donald Trump. As the former president gears up for another presidential run, a new poll shows that nearly half of GOP supporters don’t want someone on the ballot who is facing dozens of criminal charges.

‘Destroying the GOP’

Republicans who were once loyal to Trump also don’t want him back in the White House because he was impeached an historic two times, the new poll suggests. And its findings show that Republicans increasingly have the opinion that Trump is “destroying the Republican Party.”

‘Someone Else, Please!’

A poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed that the majority of Americans — 70 percent — wanted someone other than Trump to become the next Republican president. Unsurprisingly, more Democrats than Republicans held this view, with 93 percent and 63 percent respectively.

More College-Educated Workers Reject Trump

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Unskilled workers, or those without a college degree, were less likely than those who were university-educated to want Trump gone from the 2024 presidential election, at 65 percent and 80 percent for both groups.

Impeachments and Indictments

Trump is the only president in American history to have been impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and insurrection, but he was later acquitted of both by the Senate. And he’s the only current or former US president to be charged with criminal wrongdoing, after being indicted a total of four times on 91 charges. Prosecutors allege Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, in cases at federal and state level, in Georgia.

Another indictment relates to sensitive government documents that Trump removed from the White House and kept at his Florida home, allegedly refusing to return them when asked. Trump is in court in New York over charges that his property company, the Trump Organization, committed years of fraud.

2020 Presidential Debacle

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Trump was seeking a second term in office but failed to get re-elected in the 2020 vote. He refused to accept he lost, to Joe Biden, instead claiming the election was “rigged”. Trump mounted a slew of legal challenges but the courts threw out his suits for lack of evidence. Still refusing to concede, Trump called on his supporters to protest and thousands of people turned out at the US Capitol, where rioting ensued and five people lost their lives in the mayhem.

‘Tarnished Image’

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The fallout from the 2020 election and subsequent criminal charges against Trump, as well as his impeachments, are unlikely to sit well with Republicans who may have voted for him in the past, say analysts. They point to Trump’s often erratic behavior while in office and afterwards, and his frequent social media attacks on people, for tarnishing the image of the GOP and that of the former president himself.

Eligibility Cases

Those who took part in the poll and said they don’t want Trump as president again may get their wish if two courts decide he can’t actually run in the 2024 presidential election. Courts in two states are hearing arguments from liberal groups who say Trump is not eligible to run due to the insurrection clause in the Constitution, owing to his behavior after the 2020 vote. Trump’s legal team argues that the clause doesn’t explicitly mention the president of the United States, only House representatives and senators and therefore it doesn’t apply to Trump.

Not All Bad Trump News

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The grim polling news for the former president is in contrast to Trump’s popularity among those who do want him as president once more. Trump is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination for the 2024 race, with a massive 50-point lead in national polling over Republican rivals including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That makes him the clear favorite to be selected as the GOP candidate in primaries next January, despite his many legal and other problems.

A 2020 Rematch?

On the Democratic side, Biden is also the favorite to be selected as its candidate for 2024. He has almost no competition and is polling nationally at around 70 percent, although at 80 and amid a series of gaffes, there are rising concerns about Biden’s age and apparent frailty. If he and Trump, 77, are chosen as their parties’ candidates, it would mean a rematch of the 2020 presidential election.

Voters ‘Tired’ of Trump and Biden

But other polls, by YouGov and Yahoo, also show a significant amount of voter fatigue over Trump and Biden and the never-ending drama. The majority of people who took part in the polls said they were “exhausted” by the pair and wished there were other candidates for the 2024 race.