Former President Donald Trump arrived in Miami on Monday to face federal criminal charges, and according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, the overwhelming majority of his fellow Republicans believe the case is politically motivated.
Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, is scheduled to make his initial court appearance in the case on Tuesday at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) in a Miami federal courthouse.
Trump Maintains Popularity Despite Indictment
Trump has declared his innocence and pledged to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in the November 2024 election despite being accused of illegally retaining US national security documents and lying to officials trying to recover them.
Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, landed in Miami in a private aircraft bearing his name at 2:54 p.m. (1854 GMT) on Wednesday. Outside the adjacent golf club he owns, where he was to spend the night, supporters congregated.
Trump's legal troubles have had no effect on his popularity with Republican voters. According to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos and released on Monday, 81% of Republicans believed the allegations were politically motivated. The survey also revealed that Trump maintains a significant lead over his competitors for the party's presidential nomination.
Perhaps nowhere is Florida's shift to the right more evident than in this vibrant swath of the state's southeast coast, where the latest Donald Trump drama is playing out.
In recent years, Republicans have steadily gained ground in this erstwhile Democratic stronghold, culminating in the GOP carrying Miami-Dade County in the 2014 midterm elections.
Per AP News, the future of the party as a whole may now hinge on what occurs in South Florida but for an entirely different reason. Trump, the former president who is once again the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, will make his first appearance in federal court in Miami on Tuesday, where he will face 37 felony counts related to the illegal retention of classified information.
The allegations have thrust Miami into the center of a narrative that, until recently, was widely believed to be unfolding in a Washington grand jury room. And it has highlighted Trump's rising popularity among Florida's Latinos, some of whom have drawn parallels between the former president's prosecution and foreign events in which opposition leaders have been arrested or prosecuted in kangaroo courts - despite the US tradition of respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary.
The most populous county in the state is home to 1.5 million Latinos of voting age. Hillary Clinton won the county by roughly 30 percentage points over Trump in 2016. In contrast, Trump made gains in 2020, narrowing the gap with Joseph Biden to 7 percentage points.
Last year, the county shifted, with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, whose MAGA brand was boosted by President Trump from relative obscurity, defeating his Democratic opponent by more than 11 percentage points.
Budloads of Trump Supporters are Expected to Arrive in Florida
Last week, on the day his indictment was unsealed, Trump played golf with Republican U.S. Representative Carlos Gimenez, whose district includes portions of Miami-Dade County. In 2016, the Cuban-born congressman supported Hillary Clinton, but in 2020 he supported Donald Trump, even supporting efforts to deny the election results in the hours following the January 6 Capitol uprising.
At least four buses carrying hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump are anticipated to arrive in Miami on Tuesday.
The Florida Republican Assembly, a self-described "Judeo-Christian grassroots organization committed to restoring the Republican Party to its founding principles," is coordinating the transportation plan, according to Lou Marin, executive vice president.
Marin told the Miami Herald that the buses will be sourced from "strategic locations" throughout Florida and that six more are on standby for use as required. The individual from Orange County stated that the buses could transport up to 2,000 passengers to Miami.
The event's flyer indicates that buses are traveling from the Orlando area and that LCA Development, an Orlando-based real estate developer, is sponsoring the event.
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