Why Trump’s Attacks on John Roberts Aren’t Working With Some Conservatives

The importance of the court and the role of Chief Justice Roberts have particular resonance in LaPorte County, a better place than most to assess the potential of the Trump campaign’s new justice-centered messaging. It is the county where the chief justice grew up, meaning for voters here, the Supreme Court is not so much a national abstraction as a local point of interest.

Moreover, LaPorte is among the Midwest counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then swung to Mr. Trump in 2016, the kind of blue-collar, white working-class community that is critical to the president’s path to re-election. On the whole, Mr. Trump is unlikely to have any trouble winning Indiana, the home state of his vice president, come November. Yet as a swing area in a conservative state, LaPorte offers a meaningful glimpse into the troubles Mr. Trump’s campaign is facing with not only those longtime Democrats who gambled on his candidacy in 2016, but also members of his own party.

Some Republicans in LaPorte say there is a growing sense within the local party that the Supreme Court trade-off — another seat on the bench for four more years of Mr. Trump — might no longer be worth it.

“I’m a lifelong Republican, but I’m really concerned with where the party seems to be heading,” said Leigh Morris, a former mayor of the City of La Porte and a former G.O.P. chairman in the county. “There is no national sense of direction. I really don’t think that concerns about the Supreme Court will motivate attitudes much this year.”

Mr. Morris, 85, said an “anti-Trump vote” in the county was growing. He criticized the president specifically for failing to lead amid the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 53,000 confirmed cases in Indiana.

“I was optimistic when he first took office,” Mr. Morris said. “He put together what I thought was a pretty strong team. But that’s gone away.”

Other voters disagreed that an explicitly anti-Trump vote was growing in LaPorte, but all said that enthusiasm for the president had significantly dwindled. And the possibility that even the chairman of the county G.O.P. might not vote for Mr. Trump has caused tension among the group’s members.