According to an AP/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday, fewer than 20% of Republicans think that former President Donald Trump’s actions are illegal in any of the four cases against him. 

But according to Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the poll may not have captured one nuance of voters’ thinking.

“I think that poll — I would take issue with it in one way,” he told Capital Tonight. 

“I think it’s suffering from something called, in social science, expressive bias, where it’s not necessarily the case, I think, that those people are saying that he hasn’t done anything illegal. What they are saying is ‘I am supporting the former president.'"

Reeher continued.

“I do think that the problem here for the most recent set of indictments for the former president is that there’s been so many, and there’s been such a long string of legal problems that most voters just kind of put it into a box — and that is, that Trump does these kinds of things,” he said.

But the legal jeopardy the former president faces will be a problem on the campaign trail, according to Reeher.

“He’s going to get hammered on this by the other nominees, or the other people pursuing the Republican nomination,” Reeher said. “They’re going to keep talking about it. Whether or not it matters to the Republican primary electorate, is the big question.”