'Big mo': Post-debate bump, legal wins help Trump build summer momentum

In presidential politics, momentum swings fast.

Just ask Donald Trump.

In less than a week, Trump’s legal woes have been significantly minimized for now by the courts, his once daunting campaign cash deficit has all but disappeared, and a disastrous debate performance from President Joe Biden not only has Trump widening his lead in some public polling, but has Biden at odds with many in his own party who believe the 81-year-old president is not up to the task of running again.

“Big Mo is clearly on Trump’s side,” said South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick, using a slang term for "momentum," which he believes the Republican has gathered over the past week. “From the national polls to most of the battleground state polls, and he is setting fundraising records, it has been a great several weeks.”

The politics of the 2024 race can perhaps now be seen as a split screen, with everything before last week’s Atlanta debate on one side and everything after on the other.

In late May, Trump had become the first former president to become a convicted felon and for much of the year was trailing Biden and Democrats in fundraising. Plus even after the conviction, there was the prospect of future legal woes dogging his campaign for the duration of the 2024 election cycle.

That started to turn around when he rode his conviction to big fundraising gains and then saw his opponent deliver a disastrous debate performance.

The latest bump for Trump came this week when the U.S. Supreme Court handed Trump a win, saying core presidential functions are immune from prosecution, a decision that could hobble the prosecutions he still faces. As a result of that ruling, on Tuesday the judge in his New York hush money case delayed sentencing after