Did 2020 Election Denial help/hurt Trump?

[TheReckoning]

?

[Rhode Islander First, American Second]

Hurt a little but it stinks that he isn't in prison for wha he did.

[riverwalk7]

Helped him a lot in the primary, but had a marginal negative impact in the general.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Trump wins NH and MN without it and probably wins the swing states by enough to win to carry over the other purple seat republicans across the line

[EastOfEden]

Hurt, but seemingly not that much. Or maybe it did hurt him a lot and any other Republican would have won a landslide. Hard to say.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

Helped him a lot in the primary, but had a marginal negative impact in the general.

Good point....without election denialism, the "loser" and "he can't win" arguments against Trump would've actually carried some weight.

[Agafin]

Helped him a lot in the primary, but had a marginal negative impact in the general.

My thoughts too. The republican base never really soured on Trump because they didn't view him as a loser. And keeping the base motivated is all he needed to win the primary. In the General Election, it absolutely hurt him with all of the high propensity voters (white, suburban, college educated, old, wealthy) which probably cost him some states like New Hampshire. It also made it so much harder for smarter people like Vance to more effectively defend him because they had to walk on egg shells on this topic (see: the VP debate).

[Samof94]

Helped him a lot in the primary, but had a marginal negative impact in the general.

I mean, he never showed up at primary debates.

[Progressive Pessimist]

It hurt in 2022 for sure.

Although that was a different electorate, so it ended up irrelevant when the troglodytes woke up from their four year hibernation.

Actually, I hate to admit it, but the election denial probably helped him lock up the nomination for 2024. It's possible that maybe the GOP power brokers would have wanted to move on if the base didn't lap up the conspiracies and lies that added to the persecution complex they and their leader gravitate to. Trump never had the shame to go away, however the election denialism continued feeding his credibility to be nominated again based on sheer vengeance and retribution.

The f***ing guy gets away with f***ing everything...it's so sickening.

[SN2903]

It helped him ultimately because of the reaction to it. I don't think Trump would have made a successful comeback without the Democrat lawfare.

[Sopranos Republican]

Probably hurt more than we realize.

I truly think this combined with Dobbs are the only reasons this wasn’t a total blowout.

[Eraserhead]

Helped, obviously.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Candidates who lose disappear.

I do think there's something to the idea that denying the loss allowed him to project more strength than he'd otherwise have.

[Crane]

It helped him ultimately because of the reaction to it. I don't think Trump would have made a successful comeback without the Democrat lawfare.

So either you think he didn't commit crimes or that he shouldn't have been prosecuted for them. Which is it?