Trump Legal Woes Help Christie in Primary Challenge

Reminding Republicans of Trump indictments creates small lane for former Governor

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, May 10, 2023 – Former President Donald Trump is the strong favorite for New Jersey Republicans in a potential 2024 Republican Presidential primary, but his legal woes are helping potential challengers. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, only 25 percent of New Jersey Republicans say that they would consider supporting former Governor Chris Christie in a Presidential primary, while 40 percent say that they will “definitely” support Trump. However, when voters are asked about Trump’s legal challenges, Republicans become more open to supporting Christie, even as support for Trump remains unchanged.

“Being indicted and subjected to multiple investigations that could lead to more indictments hasn’t hurt Trump’s standing in the party,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “But that doesn’t mean that his legal problems aren’t helping potential challengers.”

Studies carried out since Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury have shown that his legal woes don’t seem to have hurt his standing among Republicans, a finding replicated here. In the survey, only 15 percent of New Jersey Republicans say that the indictments against Trump are legitimate, with 78 percent saying that they are not legitimate. At the same time, 90 percent of Democrats, and 49 percent of independents say that they are legitimate; 41 percent of independents say that they are not. Forty percent of Republicans say that they will “definitely” support the former President in a potential 2024 primary; another 31 percent say that they are “likely” to do so. Only 8 percent say that they will “definitely not” support Trump.

To examine the effect of the indictments on a potential primary challenge from Christie, an experiment was embedded in the poll. Half of the respondents were asked about the indictments before being asked about support for Christie or Trump; half were asked about the indictments only afterward. Forty percent of Republicans (and independents who say that they lean towards the Republican Party) say that they will “definitely” support Trump in a 2024 Republican Primary, and asking about the indictments beforehand doesn’t change this number at all.

“Partisans, both Republican and Democratic, are very good at ignoring inconvenient facts,” said Cassino. “If you’re supporting Trump, you have an incentive to ignore or counter-argue anything that would make you question that, including these legal issues.”

But reminding Republicans and leaners about the indictment does have an effect, even if it doesn’t change support for Trump. When Republicans are asked about potential support for Christie before being asked about Trump’s legal issues, only 21 percent say that they would consider supporting the former Governor. But among those who are reminded of the indictment, 29 percent say that they would consider supporting Christie, a significant increase. Put another way, thinking about the indictments makes Republicans more likely to support other candidates, even if it doesn’t change their views of Trump.

“The indictments are making at least some Trump supporters open to supporting other candidates,” said Cassino. “Christie might not be the favorite candidate for that lane, and it might not be as wide as opponents might want, but the lane does exist.”

The order of questions about support for Trump and Christie was also randomly shuffled within the study. Support for Christie was lowest (18 percent) when Republicans were asked about Christie before being asked about Trump or the indictments, and highest when they were asked about the indictments first (29 percent), though there is no difference between asking about Christie or Trump support first, when preceded by the question about the indictments.

Christie previously ran in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary; after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary, he dropped out, endorsed Trump, and began campaigning for him. He also served as the head of Trump’s transition planning team. In recent years, Christie has become a vocal opponent of Trump within the Republican Party. Christie has said that he will not endorse or support Trump again and that he is considering running again in 2024.

Methodology

The survey was conducted between April 28 and May 6, 2023, using a certified list of adult New Jersey residents carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Lists of residents were obtained from Aristotle International of Washington, DC. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list and contacted via either live-caller telephone interviews or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 817 respondents. 239 of the surveys were carried out via live-caller telephone interviews on landlines, and the remainder (578) were done on a web platform via web links sent via SMS to cell phones, or via live-caller cell phone interviews. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult NJ residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.4.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 817 residents is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.7 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

817 New Jersey Residents

Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from the 2020 US Census. Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

18-30

19%                N = 158

31-44

30%                 N = 249

45-64

32%                 N = 252

65+

19%                 N = 150

Democrat (with leaners)

44%                 N = 295

Independent

22%                 N = 147

Republican (with leaners)

34%                 N = 230

White

55%                N = 449

Black

13%                N = 104

Hispanic/Latino/a

21%                N = 170

Asian

8%                  N = 61

Other/Multi-racial

2%                  N = 15

No college degree

60%                N = 483

College degree or more

40%                N = 321 

Question Wording and Order

Prior questions held for later release

D1. In politics today, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else?

1. Democrat
2. Republican
3. Independent  [ASK D1A]
4. Something Else/Other
5. DK/Ref

D1A. [Ask only if D1 is 3] Which way do you lean?

1. Democrat
2. Republican
3. Independent
4. Something Else/Other
5. DK/Ref

NJ6. [Half get this question before NJ7, half get it after NJ7] Former President Trump is under investigation over several matters and has been indicted for alleged crimes in New York. Do you believe that these investigations are legitimate, or not?

1. Believe that they’re legitimate
2. Do not believe that they’re legitimate
3. Don’t Know [Vol]

1. Refused [Vol]

[Randomly shuffle order of NJ7A, NJ7B; both only for Republicans and leaners]

NJ7A. [Ask only Republicans/lean Republicans] Regardless of who else is running for the Republican nomination, how likely are you to support former President Trump in the Republican Presidential Primary next year?

1. Will definitely support Trump
2. Likely to support Trump
3. Unlikely to support Trump
4. Will definitely not support Trump
5. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]

1. Refused [Vol]

NJ7B. [Ask only Republicans/lean Republicans] Former Governor Christie has been exploring a run for President next year. Regardless of who else is running for the Republican nomination, would you consider voting for Christie in the Republican Presidential primary?

1. Would consider voting for Christie
2. Would not consider voting for Christie
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]

1. Refused [Vol]

NJ6. [Half get this question before NJ7, half get it after NJ7] Former President Trump is under investigation over several matters and has been indicted for alleged crimes in New York. Do you believe that these investigations are legitimate, or not?

1. Believe that they’re legitimate
2. Do not believe that they’re legitimate
3. Don’t Know [Vol]

1. Refused [Vol]

Further questions held for later release

Release Tables