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- Trump has been prosecuted several times, both while in and out of the White House.
- Each time, Republicans have predicted it would galvanize their base in upcoming general elections.
- But time and time again, the prosecutions failed to energize his voters to turn out.
President Donald Trump has been prosecuted repeatedly in recent years, both while in the White House and outside of it. And each time, experts and those close to Trump have predicted the proceedings could energize his supporters and the Republican base.
Time and time again, however, prosecuting the former president has yet to lead to any notable positive electoral consequences.
On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for, in part, trying to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Trump's political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter.
Following the proceedings, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale predicted the impeachment would lead to a high Republican turnout in the 2020 presidential election.
"Any time people try to lessen this legitimate president, in any way, his voters fight back," Parscale said in December 2019.
Trump, however, ultimately ended up losing the 2020 presidential election to Biden, and Democrats ultimately won control of the US Senate, giving them control of each branch of the federal government for the first time since 2011.
Several years after Trump left the White House, in August 2022, he found himself embroiled in more prosecutorial drama after the FBI raided his Mar-A-Lago in an investigation over the mishandling of classified documents.
Former adviser to President Bill Clinton, Doug Schoen, noted in an opinion piece for The Hill that the FBI's search of Mar-A-Lago likely wouldn't sway voters to switch parties but that it could "further galvanize an already-enthused Republican base to the detriment of the Democratic Party."
Prior to the 2022 election, Republicans and pollsters repeatedly predicted the election would result in a "Red Wave," or a GOP landslide victory.
And while Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, they did so in a much narrower manner than predicted. Democrats also, crucially, maintained control of the Senate. Ultimately, GOP voters in the 2022 midterm elections weren't as energized by the Mar-A-Lago raid as Democratic voters were — the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade's federal abortion protections in mid-2022 proved to motivate Democrats to turn out in larger droves than expected.
And on April 4, 2023, the Manhattan District Court indicted the former president for falsifying business records. That same day, two elections were scheduled to occur in Wisconsin and Chicago for a new state supreme court justice and mayor, respectively.
Following the indictment, Amy Walter, the editor-in-chief of The Cook Political Report, predicted that with "all of the energy among his base, the sense that he's being wronged, might make things a little more unstable when it comes to understanding turnout."
That evening, progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz handily defeated her conservative opponent by more than ten percentage points and the more progressive, Democratic Chicago mayoral candidate, Brandon Johnson, narrowly won as well.
While prosecutorial efforts against Trump have yet to energize his base in general elections, they likely could help him out in the 2024 presidential primary election — the former president has campaigned and marketed extensively off of the recent indictment against him.
Additionally, fellow presidential candidates and prospective ones, such as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have yet to attack Trump for the indictment, instead rallying to his aid.
Despite repeated predictions and warnings that prosecuting the former president would invigorate his base in upcoming elections, investigations against Trump simply haven't energized his base as expected. Voters, alternatively, appear to care much more about issues that affect them personally, like abortion, inflation, and crime.