Former US President Donald Trump remains far ahead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination despite the latest indictment against him, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday finds.
Some 43% of self-identified Republicans said Trump was their preferred candidate, compared to 22% who picked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest rival.
In early May, Trump led DeSantis 49% to 19%, but that was before DeSantis formally entered the race.
The rest of the Republican field, which includes former Vice President Mike Pence who declared his candidacy last week, had low single-digit levels of support.
The poll also found that a vast majority of Republicans believe the federal criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated.
The polling, which began on Friday, a day after Trump was indicted, found that 81% of self-identified Republicans said politics was driving the case.
Some 62% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 91% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans, said it was believable that Trump illegally stored classified documents at his home in Florida as alleged by prosecutors.
The federal indictment against Trump in the classified documents case was unsealed on Friday. According to the indictment, Trump faces 37 counts in the case, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, according to the indictment.

Special counsel Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to oversee the investigation after Trump declared his candidacy for president in 2024, emphasized the seriousness of the charges facing Trump on Friday shortly after the indictment was unsealed.
On Saturday, Trump denounced the indictment against him in a speech in Georgia, calling it “ridiculous and baseless.”