VEN OUT OF OFFICE, DONALD Trump cannot stop making history. His unprecedented indictment in New York this month on 34 felony counts related to paying hush money to a porn star joins a long list of dubious historical firsts: Along with being the only U.S. president to get impeached twice, and the only one to lose the popular vote two times, Trump is now also the first president to face criminal charges.
What’s even more remarkable: Despite all his political baggage and mounting legal problems, early polls show Trump remains the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—by a wide margin. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is undeclared but widely expected to run, remains a distant second in recent polls. No one else is close.
“Right now, it’s President Trump’s to win or lose,” Scott Walker, the former Republican Wisconsin governor who ran for president in 2016, tells Newsweek.
If Trump defies political gravity yet again and wins the nomination, it could set up a rematch with President Joe Biden that would have enormous implications for U.S. policy at home and abroad. A Trump victory in the 2024 Republican primaries could also have lasting consequences for the political right—and democracy—in America, as well as ushering in a new era in which criminal charges are not viewed as a disqualifier for serious presidential contenders.
Trump’s indictment has already broken political norms, injecting a major element of uncertainty into the Republican primary race. With the first contests still more than nine months away, the impact on Trump’s quest for a third straight nomination won’t be known for a while. But Republican Party insiders, strategists and other political experts point to three key factors shaping the race that will be critical to watch in the months ahead: whether Trump gets indicted in the other investigations he’s facing related to election interference and his handling of classified documents; who wins the all-important money race in the primaries; and how big the field of GOP contenders grows before voting starts next year.
Of those three factors, most Republicans agree Trump’s legal problems
