By Michael Shepherd - Aug. 2, 2023
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The former president's latest indictment lands a familiar way in Maine. You may have heard that former President Donald Trump was indicted again Tuesday, this time on federal charges related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Read the indictment and a good Associated Press story on the key takeaways from that document.

The former president — who is virtually tied in the 2024 polls with the sitting one — now has fresh felony charges piled atop another round from June on his handling of classified documents. Trump also faces earlier business-related charges in the state of New York. He will be fighting these into an election year in which he remains the clear effort for the Republican presidential nomination.

All of this, to use a well-worn cliche, is unprecedented. You can't call much about the Trump era normal. But now that this has happened three times, the response is becoming almost that, with the early responses from some of Maine's big-name politicians showing some clear muscle memory.

When Trump was indicted on the documents charge in June, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from the 1st District who frequently criticizes and opposes Trump, called it "a true demonstration of America’s enduring commitment to democracy." On Tuesday, one line of her lengthy statement said the new indictment "shows the enduring strength of our rule of law."

If you thought those lines were similar, note that Rep. Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat from Maine's Trump-friendly 2nd District, issued the exact same statement to WGME that he released after the last indictment.

"No one is above the law," he said. "Our legal system is built upon the principle of innocence until proven guilty and we should let the process play out without bias or political interference."

On top of this, Trump's indictment also seems to be having a limited effect on American politics for the moment. Over the last few months, he has only strengthened his position in the Republican primary. He is leading across regions and demographics with primary voters generally ignoring his legal trouble, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll released this week.

There are no reasons to think Maine is any different. A June poll by the University of New Hampshire found that 93 percent of Trump's Maine voters in 2020 were either more likely or just as likely to back him in the next election after his earlier federal indictment, making it hard to see any short-term political effects of this indictment. Only 34 percent of Maine Republicans were "very confident" that the 2022 vote was counted accurately in another UNH poll.

Republicans don't seem to have a winning argument here, however. In those same polls, six in 10 Maine voters thought Trump committed a serious crime and nearly two-thirds of them were highly confident in the count. All of this could make Trump and his viewpoints a large vulnerability in the general election.

Right now, Biden's approval ratings are mired in the low 40s. He may be helped by Trump's favorability being lower. But the president's struggles are keeping the former president in this race right now, which is an incredible thing given Trump's legal woes.