If there’s one thing Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on with the latest indictment of Donald Trump, it’s that the charges at hand—that he attempted to subvert democracy—are almost certainly the most significant ones he faces.
“This indictment is the most serious and most consequential thus far,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Tuesday, “and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including the president of the United States, is above the law.”
After Trump’s indictment in the Stormy Daniels hush money case in March, and his federal indictment in June over mishandling classified documents, many Democratic lawmakers commented publicly on the developments, including those facing competitive elections in 2024.
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Despite its powerful and historic political significance—or perhaps because of it—the latest indictment has sparked a very different reaction among Democrats: crickets.
Among the 14 leading Democratic or Democratic-aligned candidates running, or up for re-election, in the most competitive Senate seats this cycle, just five have commented publicly on the Jan. 6 indictment.
They include Sen. Jon Tester, who is defending his seat in Republican-leaning Montana, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is aiming to win the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who’s challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
While Tester issued a carefully worded statement to local press touting the principle that “no one is above the law,” Slotkin and Gutierrez both took aim at Trump. “A former president using the power of his office to lie and attempt to thwart the will of American voters is an American tragedy,” Slotkin tweeted. (Notably, Slotkin’s primary rival, actor Hill Harper, responded to the indictment by tweeting, “our democracy is on the line.”)
Rep. Colin Allred, who is also running against Cruz, posted a tweet referencing the indictment after The Daily Beast reached out for comment. “Ted Cruz is using Trump’s indictment over his role in the Jan 6 insurrection to promote his podcast and call America a banana republic,” he said.
The other Democrats have not issued statements, given interviews, or posted on social media about the Jan. 6 indictment. Their spokespeople all either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast, save for Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).
Kaine’s spokesperson said the senator “believes no one is above the law, all legal proceedings should be fair and impartial, and everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
The group of those who declined to comment or did not respond includes Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Arizona Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), all of whom either commented on the Manhattan charges and/or the classified documents indictment. A spokesperson for Sinema, who caucuses with the Democrats, said they “won’t comment while the judicial process is occurring.”
Three Democratic incumbents—Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH)—have not commented publicly on any of the indictments, and did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast or other media outlets.
With Congress on its annual extended summer recess, reporters cannot personally press candidates who are incumbents or House members for responses to the indictment.
Democrats, it seems, are taking a far more subdued tack when it comes to these charges, knowing Trump may actually go down for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Instead of the familiar resistance taunting that Democrats have subjected Trump to for his usual blunders, the charges this time speak for themselves—and the legal jeopardy is real enough that it doesn’t need Democratic spin.
With Trump’s varied legal woes and recriminations over Jan. 6 set to continue dominating the news, and with Democrats concerned about adding to perceptions of partisanship in prosecutions led by Joe Biden’s Justice Department, they may see no upside in giving even a pro forma statement on the case.
“Voters are going to hear plenty about it, eventually a jury is going to hear plenty about it,” said Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin. “Democratic lawmakers weighing in right now isn’t the most necessary thing, and it’d just give Republicans a foil.”
Jim Kessler, executive vice president at the center-left think tank Third Way, said the Democratic incumbents are “just wary of any variable” in a campaign.
“They have their campaign, the message they want to get out, the story they want to tell, and the way they want to define their opponent,” Kessler said. “And then this comes along, and it's just—it's a variable. And oftentimes, candidates wait."
While Trump remains deeply unpopular amid his 2024 presidential comeback run, the reaction to this week’s indictment makes it clear that Democrats in the toughest political environments are still treading particularly carefully when it comes to the former president and his assault on the democratic system.
In 2024, the uphill path for Democrats to hold their Senate majority runs through states that Trump won in 2020 or 2016. They are defending incumbents in three states where Trump won blowout victories—West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio—and losses in just two of them could cost them the majority.
Aware of the challenging dynamics, national Republicans are closely scrutinizing the silence of Senate Democrats on the most recent indictment.
“If these Senate Democrats think it’s wrong that Joe Biden is attempting to put his top political opponent in jail for the rest of his life, now is the time to say so,” said Philip Letsou, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Their voters deserve to know.”
That’s not to say the Trump indictments will be a breeze for Senate Republicans. As GOP candidates attempt to win crowded primaries, they are either racing to see who can most loudly and ostentatiously defend Trump, issuing careful statements with an eye toward the general election, or are staying quiet altogether.
In Ohio, for instance, MAGA-aligned Bernie Moreno adopted the widespread line that the federal charges were a distraction from GOP allegations of corruption against Biden and promised that “cleaning house at the DOJ” would be his priority as a senator.
His rivals, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan, took far more circumspect notes—particularly Dolan, who ran in 2022 and vocally pushed back against Trump’s election conspiracies and Jan. 6.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Dolan neither praised nor condemned the move by Special Counsel Jack Smith to charge Trump on four counts related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
“As oversight from Congress and legal processes continue to play out in our national politics, my focus as a public servant will remain on working each day to uphold and protect the Constitution and make the lives of all Ohioans safer and stronger,” Dolan said.
Notably, however, the most prized GOP recruits are hewing closely to the Trump line. Tim Sheehy, for instance, is Senate brass’s preferred challenger to Tester in Montana. Though he was hardly a staunch Trump supporter before, Sheehy issued a sharp statement on Tuesday condemning Biden.
“Joe Biden knows he can’t beat Trump at the ballot box, so he’s trying to throw him in prison. If anyone should go to jail, it’s Joe & Hunter Biden,” tweeted Sheehy, who referenced congressional testimony from Monday by a former Hunter business partner that he claimed proved “shocking corruption.”
Either way, with Trump likely to return to the top of the 2024 GOP ticket, Republicans down ballot will likely be under pressure from him and the party base to respond to the twists and turns of his three, likely soon to be four, criminal cases.
As the 2022 election showed, election denialism, Jan. 6 conspiracies, and fealty to Trump have been serious political losers for the GOP.
"This cycle, Republican Senate candidates won’t just have to answer for their own liabilities—they’ll also have to run alongside all of Trump’s baggage and scandals,” said Tommy Garcia, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
That recent history is one of the reasons Democrats are not especially sweating the short-term maneuvering around the Trump indictments.
Schwerin, the Democratic strategist, noted that as the indictments turn into criminal cases—which will span three states and the District of Columbia—it will be more important for Democratic candidates to drill down on other issues, like the economy.
“You don’t need to be afraid of talking about these issues, but no one else is gonna carry core economic kitchen table issues if you don’t do it,” he said. “That’s where our focus needs to be. Voters will hear about [the indictments] anyway and they are inherently bad for the other side.”
Kessler, of Third Way, cast the same general point in a different way.
"When the other side is drowning, you don’t throw them a life preserver,” he said. “You just watch."
Ursula Perano contributed to this report.
