Despite President Trump fighting three indictments and investigations into President Biden sparking talk of impeachment, the candidates remain tied in polls, with voters judging that even the serious charges from special counsel Jack Smith are just political mudslinging disguised as quests for justice.

“This is a persecution of a political opponent,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday after being arraigned on charges of subverting the 2020 election. “This was never supposed to happen in America … if you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him.”

Mr. Trump’s claims of being victimized resonate. An Ipsos/ABC News poll found 47 percent of Americans — equal to his share of the popular vote in 2020 — thought May’s indictment and FBI raid of his Mar-A-Lago home was motivated by politics while only 37 percent said it wasn’t, a number far short of Mr. Biden’s 51.3 percent margin of victory.

A CBS poll in June found that the indictments had improved rather than eroded Mr. Trump’s standing among Republican voters, with 61 percent saying that the Jack Smith indictments didn’t change their support and 14 percent saying it had given them a more positive view.

Last month’s New York Times-Siena College poll found Mr. Trump with a 41 percent favorability rating compared to 39 percent for Mr. Biden, with the former president gaining support among Black, Hispanic, and low-income voters, all groups that are described as marginalized.

Skepticism of government power is written into America’s DNA. We root for outlaws like John Brown, Butch Cassidy, and Jesse James who may be criminals, but are seen as sticking a fork in the eye of the ruling class the way our forefathers did in 1776.

This outlaw streak helps explain why, despite serious allegations, Mr. Trump earned the same 43 percent as Mr. Biden in the Times poll and why the incumbent has yet to suffer blowback for claims of selling influence through his family connections.

In an NBC poll conducted in February, 55 percent of American adults feared that the new Republican majority in the House would “spend too much time investigating President Joe Biden and not enough time on other priorities,” taking up ideological residence in Missouri, “The Show Me State,” demanding solid proof before shifting their allegiance.

Even when the evidence is overwhelming, voters resist the urge to see what was won at the ballot box stripped away in the jury box. As the late strategist for President Reagan, Arthur Finkelstein, told me, the electorate will choose a competent crook over an incompetent choir boy every time.

The 1964 Republican nominee, Senator Goldwater, had similar concerns about substituting mudslinging for policy in 1988 when he urged Vice President Quayle to “go back and tell George Bush to start talking about the issues.” President Carter called that year “the worst campaign ever,” while President Nixon described it as “trivial, superficial and inane.”

It was Nixon whose 1974 Watergate scandal demonstrated the power of prosecution to gain political advantage. His actions allowed Democrats to drive him from the presidency just 21 months after he had crushed his Democratic opponent, Senator McGovern, 49 states to one.

The Watergate investigations were seen as good-faith efforts to uncover wrongdoing. The scandal was easy to understand, and a more innocent and idealistic nation held their presidents to a higher standard, which is why Mr. Biden was driven out of his first try for the presidency in 1988 not for crimes, but for the moral failing of plagiarism.

Today, voters seem to have accepted a common Democratic retort from President Clinton’s impeachment trial: “Everybody does it.” If all politicians are crooked, then no matter how much illegality is alleged–or even an indictment is handed down– voters shrug, and focus on whose policies will deliver on issues such as inflation, the border, and crime.

In 1973, Nixon told 400 managing editors from the Associated Press, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook,” but candidates shouldn’t expect voters to be swayed by allegations or indictments from the likes of Mr. Smith. Policies and performance always matter more when there’s no choir boy on the ballot.