The latest poll has revealed that former president Donald Trump is still leading his Republican rivals in Georgia – despite being indicted in Fulton County over his efforts to overturn his election loss in the state.
The poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, asked 807 likely Republican primary voters in the state who they would vote for in the presidential primary.
Mr Trump earned 57 per cent of the vote, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis trailed behind the former president with 15 per cent.
The next highest share went to undecided voters who made up 14 per cent, while other GOP candidates – including former vice president Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Francis Suarez – didn’t even break out of the single digits.
According to the AJC, when asking the likely GOP primary voters who they would support in a race between Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis, the former president still held a 33-point lead over the Florida governor.
On top of this, half of Georgia Republicans polled said that Mr Trump is “definitely” the strongest candidate to defeat President Joe Biden in the next election.
This poll comes after Mr Trump was indicted – along with 18 others, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mark Meadows – in the Fulton County probe.
Mr Trump faces 13 charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Last week, he was formally arrested and had his mug shot taken, making him the first current or former president to ever be captured in a booking photo.
On Monday, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows took the historic step of testifying in criminal court for the first time about the allegations laid out in the sprawling indictment as he seeks to have the case moved to federal court.
Mr Trump and his co-defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on 6 September.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Windham, New Hampshire, U.S., August 8, 2023— (REUTERS)
The AJC poll also asked the likely GOP primary voters how serious they believed the indictment to be.
In total, 27 per cent said they found the charges “very serious,” 23 per cent said they found them “somewhat serious,” while a whopping 31 per cent found them “not serious at all”.
The former president will have to juggle his 2024 campaign schedule with his court dates in the Georgia case, and also in his two federal cases – one regarding his handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and one regarding his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election – as well as his New York case over hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels.
