‘Truly Unprecedented’: Donald Trump Is Dominating the Early Primary Season Like Nothing in Modern History

• Former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the crowded Republican primary field as he makes his third bid for the White House.
• Polling analysts emphasized how “unprecedented” and “unique” this cycle is, considering a former president is heavily in the lead with two federal indictments under his belt, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• “This GOP primary is truly unprecedented, because Trump is not technically an incumbent, but Republican voters seem to be treating him as at least a quasi-incumbent,” Kyle Kondik, nonpartisan polling analyst and managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the DCNF.

Former President Donald Trump continues to dominate the early primary season in an unprecedented third bid for the White House, polling experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

This Republican primary cycle is like none other as the frontrunner is a former president, has a massive lead in the polls, his former vice president is running against him and Trump has two federal indictments under his belt. Polling analysts stressed to the DCNF the stark difference between this GOP primary season and previous cycles, arguing that it’s difficult to draw comparisons in modern history.

“This GOP primary is truly unprecedented, because Trump is not technically an incumbent, but Republican voters seem to be treating him as at least a quasi-incumbent,” Kyle Kondik, a nonpartisan polling analyst and managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the DCNF. “This primary is similar to 2016 in the sense that the field is large, meaning that it’ll be hard for a non-Trump to consolidate the non-Trump supporters.”

Kondik also noted that the former president’s legal troubles pose another “unique” angle to the primary, which the analyst argued makes it difficult to draw similarities between this election and previous cycles. Trump’s two indictments could cause “fatigue” among the GOP, leading to a drop in the polls, but Kondik doesn’t see signs of his support currently lagging.

In late March, the former president was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for allegedly falsifying business records when paying back former attorney Michael Cohen for giving porn star actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. In early June, Trump was indicted by a federal judge in Miami, Florida, for alleged violation of the Espionage Act, along with several other charges like obstruction and making false statements, related to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into the alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, also stressed how unprecedented this Republican primary is and argued Trump’s reshaping of the party, paired with his indictment by the Manhattan district attorney, have helped the former president dominate the polls.

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