Donald Trump's attorney and legal spokeswoman Alina Habba did a bit of trolling following the release of the former president's mugshot in Georgia, claiming that Fani Willis' move was a "power play that got reversed on her." 

Habba also suggested that the mugshot would help Trump win the 2024 election, calling it "probably one of the best things that ever happened to him." 

"Thank you, Fani," Alina Habba, attorney and legal spokesman for Trump, said. 

During an interview with Newsmax, Habba condemned Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's attempts to persecute Trump politically over his alleged attempt to turn over the 2020 election. 

The Trump attorney said Willis's decision to release the former president's mugshot was a "power play that got reversed on her." 

"They didn't need the mug shot," Habba said. "It was, I guess to her, probably a trophy, but thank you because now the trophy actually became ours."

Whenever you analyze any of this, you have to separate the two major lanes. One lane is the legal lane. Does the mugshot help Trump in regard to Willis' prosecution of him and his co-defendants? No, it doesn't. Does it help him garner support with a rather large segment of the Republican Party? Yes, it does.

A campaign can only work with what they have, and in this case, the only play is for Habba (who operates as a campaign surrogate as much as an attorney) and others in Trump's inner circle to spin this as a massive win. Certainly, there's reason to believe it could further strengthen support for the former president in the primary given each indictment to this point has done just that. On that point, trolling Willis and continuing to batter her as the political hack she is makes a ton of sense. 

With that said, people don't read my articles to have smoke blown up their backside, so I'm going to give you the whole story because the election does not end with the primary. In the summer of 2024, the general election will start, and then the glaring question will be whether these indictments and the mugshot help or harm Trump's chances of defeating Joe Biden. 

So what do the numbers say? According to the latest Ipsos poll, three in five Americans want Trump to stand trial before the 2024 election, signaling the outcome will affect their vote. Further, 59 percent of respondents believe the DOJ's charges against Trump are based on a fair reading of the evidence. Worse, 52 percent of respondents believe that Trump is guilty in the DOJ's faithless electors case. Lastly, Trump's favorability in the poll stands at a record-low -31 percent. 

That's just one poll, though. So what do other recent polls show? The last four major polls from Quinnipiac, Fox News, the AP, and ABC News all show majority support for the criminal charges against Trump. In the Fox News poll, 53 percent of respondents said Trump engaged in criminal conduct. In the Quinnipiac poll, seven out of 10 respondents said a conviction is disqualifying for the former president. 

My goal in sharing this data is not to convince you that those respondents are correct. I believe these criminal cases are quite obviously politically motivated. But as I've been stressing lately, we can only operate within the reality that exists, not the one we wish existed. So as we move into the general election with Trump likely being the nominee, understand that the arguments that may appeal to us aren't necessarily appealing to a majority of voters. Thanking Fani Willis for the mugshot may blow up conservative social media, but making it an issue against Joe Biden is almost certainly counterproductive.

Republicans better come up with a better plan next year besides feeding their own bubble if there is to be any hope of actually winning. That will probably look a lot like not leaning into these criminal charges (as is happening now) and instead focusing fire heavily on Biden along with sharing some kind of positive vision for the country.