A new AP-NORC poll has found that 55 percent of Republicans believe President Donald Trump has prioritized his own business interests since returning to office, a result that analysts say marks a notable crack in his base's confidence. About three-quarters of Americans overall said the same, according to the survey.
The findings were discussed on «Receipts Live» by The Bulwark economics editor Catherine Rampell and editor Jonathan V. Last. Rampell described the Republican result as «pretty striking» because it comes from voters who are not typically inclined to absorb inconvenient news about the president's financial dealings. She pointed to recent reports, including one that a federal regulator was told to back off a probe into suspiciously timed trades and another concerning the apparently overseas buyers of Trump's memecoin.
«Even Republicans are now acknowledging, yeah, he's in it for himself,» Rampell said. The poll also found that a similar share of Republicans said Trump has prioritized the business interests of his friends, family and those close to him.
Last focused on the intensity of the responses. He noted that 21 percent of Republicans said Trump has not at all prioritized his own interests, a figure he called «insane,» but that it was slightly smaller than the 23 percent who said he has done so «a lot.» «You get almost a quarter of Republicans saying, yeah, sure seems like he's using the government to enrich himself a lot,» Last said. «And that's not nothing.»
Both analysts cautioned that the numbers do not necessarily mean those voters will abandon Trump. Last said some Republicans might still argue that «everybody does it» or that the conduct is «no worse than what Joe Biden» did. Rampell flagged another caveat: Republicans in the same survey overwhelmingly said Trump was prioritizing the country at large and people like them as well.
«If you know how priorities work, you can't prioritize everything and everyone,» she said. «But I think this is the only way to keep a handle on all of that cognitive dissonance.»
Rampell also noted that a recent Fox News poll found corruption in government topped voters' list of concerns heading into the midterms, edging out inflation and gas prices. The AP-NORC findings add to a growing body of polling on how Americans view the president's second term, with the Republican results suggesting that concerns about self-dealing have reached at least part of his own coalition even as overall support remains intact.