The number of Republicans who say they support Donald Trump ahead of the party surged after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, according to a poll published on Sunday.
It is the latest sign that Trump could win a political dividend from the search of his Florida home, tightening his grip on the party’s grassroots supporters.
The NBC News poll found that 41 percent of Republicans said they supported the former president more than the party, up seven points since May.
In contrast, some 50 percent said they put party ahead of Trump – down from 58 percent when then question was last asked.
The poll of 1000 registered voters was conducted from August 12 to 16, a week after FBI agents triggered a storm among Trump allies by arriving at dawn with warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
Trump himself has said it will deliver seats to Republicans in November’s midterms and senior officials wonder whether it will prompt the former president to jump into the 2024 race earlier than anticipated.
‘Republicans could win many additional seats, both in the House & Senate, because of the strong backlash over the raid at Mat-a-Lago,’ he posted on his Truth Social media platform last week.
‘Polls are showing that some lost Republican territory over the last number of weeks has been more than made up with the unannounced Break In by the FBI, which should never have happened!’
Former President Trump and his allies are hoping the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home will whip up support and funds as he mulls a possible 2024 election run
A new poll shows that an increasing number of Republicans consider themselves as Trump fans first, GOP supporters second, after the FBI raid
At the same time, however, some key donors and strategists have told DailyMail.com that they believe Trump has steered the party to weak candidates for November’s midterms and that his hold on the GOP will not survive much longer.
FBI agents conducted the search as part of an investigation into documents taken to Trump’s Florida headquarters after he left office last year.
A property receipt unsealed Friday showed the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents.
Some were marked not just top secret but also ‘sensitive compartmented information,’ a category designed to safeguard the nation’s most important secrets.
The court records did not provide more specific details about what the documents contained, other than that one set was labeled ‘re: the President of France’ and another included Roger Stone’s grant of clemency.
More may be revealed about the case if a judge in Florida goes ahead and orders the unsealing of the FBI’s affidavit seeking the warrant, albeit likely in redacted form.
Even so, Trump’s base has been whipped into a frenzy by rightwing radio presenters, who have even compared the FBI with the Nazi Gestapo and East Germany’s Stasi secret police.
The search warrant was approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart who must now decide how much of an affidavit to make public, revealing more details about the case
A property receipt unsealed after last Monday’s raid showed the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents as part of its investigation into presidential files
A poll published last week suggested the raid had given Trump a boost over his nearest Republican rival for the 2024 nomination.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted on August 10 — two days after agents searched Mar-a-Lago — and found that 57 percent of Republicans picked Trump over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
More than two thirds of Republicans also said they believed the search was politically motivated.
Allies including radio host John Fredericks agree with Trump that the raid will also mobilize support in November’s midterms.
‘It leads him to a landslide victory in November 2024, it leads to a massive 50-70 House gain and three in the Senate,’ said Fredericks, Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman in 2016 and 2020, last week.
‘This has activated the Trump MAGA base like nothing I’ve ever seen. It has activated independents and this is going to backfire on the administrative state and the leftwing Marxists who are now in charge.’
A new poll reveals that a majority of likely voters agree with the proposition that the FBI has become President Joe Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after the raid on Mar-a-Lago
Trump fans rallied around his Mar-a-Lago resort in a show of support after the raid
The raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on former President Donald Trump’s home has damaged the bureau’s standing with Republican and independent voters, according to a new poll, which found that a majority agree with the idea that it has become ‘Biden’s Gestapo.’
The search of Mar-a-Lago has emboldened Trump supporters and generated a wave of donations to the former president’s political organizations.
And close allies including Steve Bannon have used the public platforms to compare the FBI with Hitler’s Gestapo or East Germany’s brutal secret police force, the Stasi.
In a new survey, Rasmussen Reports asked 1000 likely voters whether they agreed with Trump loyalist Roger Stone, who last year said the FBI had become President Joe Biden‘s ‘personal Gestapo.’
At the time he said it, some 46 percent of voters agreed with that assessment.
Now, some 53 percent of voters agree – including 34 percent, who strongly agree.
The numbers divide along party lines. Seventy-six percent of Republicans agree with Stone while 57 percent of Democrats disagree.