Trump voters think he lied about affair with Daniels

Panel overwhelmingly still supports president

Yes, they think President Trump’s lying about Stormy Daniels. And no, they really do not care.

Americans who voted for the president say they don’t believe his denial of the adult film star’s claim that she had a 2006 affair with Trump, the same year that Melania Trump gave birth to their son Barron.

But that hasn’t tempered their skyhigh support for the president. Neither has the Russia investigation into possible collusion tied to Trump, which they see as an increasingly transparent charade that’s wasting tax dollars and distracting from his agenda.

That’s according to the USA TODAY Trump Voter Panel, a free-floating focus group of 25 people nationwide who cast ballots for the president and now weigh in on his performance every few months.

At 16 months into his presidency, many call December’s sweeping tax overhaul his biggest achievement. About as many peg the GOP’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act as Trump’s biggest defeat, a prime example of the bipartisan opposition they believe has so far hamstrung his presidency.

The legal maelstroms tied to Russia and the alleged affair don’t help, they say.

“I’m not in the man’s pants. I don’t know what he did when he pulled them down,” Monty Chandler, a veteran from Church Point, La., says of Daniels’ claims. “The only evidence is her, the hush money. We’re human. We all sin. And he tried to cover it up.”

Trump enjoys an approval of 90% among Chandler and others on the panel, made up of respondents to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll in December 2016. That’s yet to waver through six check-ins — a stability that, if reflected in supporters nationwide, suggests a political security for a president remaking the GOP in his image.

Already, Republicans running for re-election largely refuse to criticize Trump, and supporters on the panel have seemed to dig in as the man they backed faces legal challenges on seemingly every side.

From our Trump voter panel

“Once you’re a believer and supporter, you stay with who you believe is going to do everything correct,” says JoAnne Musial of Canadensis, Pa. “He’s going through hell, I’ll tell you that: I know of no other human in office who could go through what he’s going through.”

Others aren’t so sure.

“I’m certainly trying to approve, but he’s making it increasingly difficult,” says Pat Jolliff of Rochester, Ind. “I’m still hanging on with him, but it’s getting frustrating.”

What Trump’s doing right

A third of respondents praised the tax overhaul as Trump’s biggest achievement in an open-ended question. But voters proved more vocal about what they saw as holding him back from more accomplishments, specifically the unwillingness of Democrats and certain Republicans to rally around the man these voters helped put into power.

“The president’s biggest achievement so far would have to be survival,” says Daniel Kohn, a retiree in Corpus Christi, Texas. “Beyond that I would say of course the tax cut package that is a big blessing to millions of folks — just like me and you.”

A third called Trump’s congressional opposition the biggest disappointment of his presidency, with slightly fewer citing his inability to steward a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Most respondents — 16, or 76% — say history will ultimately judge Trump’s presidency as good or even great. Two think he’ll be remembered as fair, and two as failed.