The drop was spectacular. In perfect coherence with the character who was the main victim. Last Monday, the accounting firm Mazars cut its long-standing ties with the Trump Organization, believing that it was no longer able to recognize the reliability of the accounting for the last 10 years of the American populist company.
In January, New York State Attorney Letitia James, who has been investigating Donald Trump’s finances for several months, announced that she had amassed evidence of tax evasion, including the repeated overvaluation of real estate assets for the purpose of secure large loans. For the ex-president’s accountants, these findings have led them to question the reliability of the Trump Organization’s financial statements made between 2011 and 2020.
They added in passing, in a letter addressed to the prosecutor, that “information received from internal and external sources” also swayed their decision in favor of severing ties with the self-proclaimed billionaire’s company for the accounting exercises. future. This tile that has just fallen on Donald Trump is not the first. But it now risks accentuating the crack that is forming in the image, reputation and influence of the ousted president, overwhelmed by lawsuits, and whose hold on the Republican Party even seems to be starting to weaken. fade.
A poll released by the American network NBC a few days ago shows that more than half of Republicans (56%) now consider themselves more favorable to the Republican Party than to the figure of the former president ( 36%) who has embodied its destiny for the past six years. At the start of 2020, these same voters said the exact opposite, saying they vote Republican more for the leader, Donald Trump (at 54%), than for the party (at 38%).
This change in behavior does not surprise Republican political strategist Keith Naughton, who explains it in part by the bitterness that the populist has consistently expressed since his defeat in November 2020.
The specter of the loser
“One of Donald Trump’s great assets, says the man contacted by The duty in Pennsylvania is that people see him as a winner. However, his obsession with his electoral defeat [qu’il associe à tort et surtout sans preuve à une fraude électorale], as his interference in several Republican primaries to talk about this defeat rather than the important issues, are making him a loser. This shows that he is living in the past, while voters want to look to the future instead. »
The fatigue over these allegations of theft of the elections by the Democrats, in contradiction with the facts, is also palpable within the American population which, in a proportion of 64%, believes that the Republican Party should now move on , according to a Politico-Morning Consult poll released last Wednesday. More than half of Republican voters are in the same direction, while the ex-president could ironically very soon face charges of interfering in Georgia’s electoral process with a view to fraudulently overturning the result of the presidential vote.
Reminder of the facts: he had tried to convince the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” 11,780 votes to ensure him a victory in this state which finally tipped over to the Democratic camp. A criminal investigation is underway, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. At the beginning of February, on CNN, she expressed her determination to convict the populist, if the overwhelming evidence – including a recorded telephone conversation – were to be used against Donald Trump by the grand jury which will begin its criminal investigation on May 2.
[Trump] lives in the past, while voters want to look more to the future.
Republican primaries
Other places of weakening: the Republican primaries in several states, with a view to choosing candidates for the midterm elections next November, also reveal the erosion of the influence of the former reality TV star on the party, with dubs whose effectiveness is ultimately not as formidable as hoped for by the ex-president.
This is the case in Georgia, where David Purdue, supported by Donald Trump in the hope of dislodging Republican Governor Brian Kemp, hated by the populist for not having responded favorably to his demands to overturn the 2020 ballot, is struggling to s impose in the current campaign. A survey of conservative voters on Thursday showed Purdue trailing 9 points behind Kemp, whose coffers have been filled with twice as many donations as his pro-Trump opponent.
The same scenario is playing out in Alaska with Lisa Murkowski, the only female senator out of seven Republican senators to run for re-election after voting to impeach Donald Trump in the wake of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. She leads by a 20-point lead over Kelly Tshibaka, the “barrier” candidate whom the ex-president is trying to put in his paws.
Candidates backed by Trump to counter Republicans not in the ousted president’s good graces also face stronger-than-expected opposition from party voters in Alabama and North Carolina. “Trump’s grip on the Republican Party has always been more tenuous than most politicians and media realize,” says Keith Naughton, explaining the first signs of weakness in the man who has been acting for years. as an emperor fears within his political formation. “Support for Trump has always been more about what he stands for and what he opposes, rather than Trump himself. He is anti-elite, anti-politically correct and anti-establishment. His dominant personality allowed him to be the representative of this line of thought”, and this, by preventing other figures from taking his place on the stage.
A hegemony that the legal disappointments of the former president, just like the image of bad loser that he cultivates by his obsessions, could now compromise. A judge on Thursday dealt another blow to the billionaire by forcing him and two of his children to comply within 21 days with the summons of prosecutor Letitia James in the ongoing investigation into tax evasion of the Trump Organization. Testimonies that could be compromising for the strong figure of the Republican Party.
Last month, the Harvard CAPS-Harris survey on the electoral prospects certainly showed that Donald Trump is still the favorite in a possible race for the leadership of the Republican Party, in view of the next presidential election. At 57%. But he is now closely followed by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and by former vice-president Mike Pence, who could take advantage of his weakening to quickly climb to the top of the political formation.
A salutary prospect for the party, but not completely, according to a Politico poll conducted at the end of January and which shows that another Biden-Trump duel in 2024 would indeed be won by the Democrat, 46% against 45% of the votes. And this, despite the low approval rating of the current president, more than a year after taking office.
However, placed against another Republican, barely 37% of voters would vote for Biden, against 45% for the possible replacement of Donald Trump, provided however that it is not one of his current rivals: DeSantis, Pence or Ted Cruz, all doomed to defeat against the current president. Another challenge for the Republican Party.