The slew of indictments against former President Donald Trump has demanded a lot of media attention lately. And, new polling from Roanoke College shows those criminal charges are on the minds of Virginia voters.
The school’s poll went out before the most recent indictment against Trump in Fulton County, Georgia. But, nevertheless, it found that at least three out of four Virginians had at least some familiarity with the three other cases against the former president.
Bryan Parsons is a political analyst at Roanoke College, and he says they also asked respondents if they thought Trump had done anything illegal, unethical or whether his actions were wrong at all.
“In the classified documents case and in the 2020 election case, we find a majority of Virginians reported that they thought the president did something illegal in those cases," Parsons says. "54% in the classified documents case, 51% in the election case.”
Virginians were less sure about the hush money payments case out of New York.
However, all those indictments are not impacting Trump in the 2024 nomination contest.
“In this poll, we find that 47% of Virginia Republicans list Trump as their first choice for the Republican nomination,” says Parsons.
The school also asked respondents to indicate who would be their second choice — and the field becomes much more competitive behind the former president.
“So, DeSantis is at 19%, Vivek Ramaswamy is at 17% and Youngkin is at 14%," says Parsons.
The pollsters decided to include Governor Glenn Youngkin after some recent speculation that he may yet enter the 2024 field.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seen his support among Virginia Republicans drop by 15 points since the school’s last polling in May.
Current President Joe Biden still leads Trump in a potential matchup by about nine points in this Virginia polling. But that lead dwindled by seven points since the school’s last survey in May.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
