We know a lot of people think the Mnhattan DA’s criminal case against ex-President Donald Trump is ‘light stuff’….
Maybe….
But?
A conviction would leave Donald Trump as a ‘convicted FELON’….
That maybe fine for some hardcore MAGA types…
But?
Polls keep showing that a Trump conviction would cancel their vote for the ex-President….
Despite the media focus on Donald Trump’s support among the Right?
A good amount of American voters WANT the Trump criminal trials to go AHEAD and actually believe the ex-President HAS committed crimes….
Eight months out, we had questions. Among them: If Trump is convicted of a crime, how will it affect his chances of returning to the White House? What do Americans make of his claim that he should be immune from prosecution even if he actually perpetrated a criminal scheme to steal the last election? Does the public trust the Supreme Court to decide that issue fairly?
To find out, we worked with Ipsos to poll the American people — and we discovered some surprising answers to all of these questions, and several more.
The bottom line is that a conviction in Manhattan may not doom Trump, but it would do real damage.
More than a third of independents said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to support Trump’s candidacy. In a close race, that might matter.
It also cuts against the conventional wisdom, as analysts have sometimes doubted the political impact of the prosecution in Manhattan, which concerns Trump’s alleged falsification of his company’s business records in connection with a hush-money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels…..
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Fifty percent of respondents said that they believe Trump is guilty of the alleged crimes charged in Manhattan.
There was a predictable and sizable partisan split, with only 14 percent of Republicans reporting that they believe Trump is guilty, while 86 percent of Democrats held that view. Among independents, 54 percent said that Trump is guilty.
What arguably stands out most is the fact that the number of people who said that they believe Trump is guilty here was nearly identical to the results when we asked respondents to consider Trump’s guilt in his other three criminal cases — the Justice Department’s prosecution in Washington over the 2020 election (49 percent said he is guilty), the department’s charges against Trump in Florida over his retention of classified documents (52 percent: guilty), and the Fulton County District Attorney’s case against Trump in Georgia over the 2020 election (49 percent: guilty). These numbers also roughly track Trump’s unfavorability ratings among the American population….
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A plurality of respondents — 44 percent — said that a conviction in Manhattan would have no impact on their likelihood to support Trump for president, but that is far from the whole story.
Among those respondents who said that a conviction would influence their decision, the numbers were not good for Trump…
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By a more than 2-1 margin, respondents said that a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump (32 percent) as opposed to more likely (13 percent). Notably, more than a third of independents said it would reduce their likelihood to support Trump. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of respondents who said that a conviction would bolster their support were Republicans. (The numbers were similar when we asked about a potential conviction in the federal prosecution for undermining the 2020 election.)
The results may give hope to some Democrats worried about Biden’s reelection prospects this fall, but there’s also no guarantee that a conviction would maintain a high level of salience through November.
There will be a long way to go between the end of the Manhattan trial and the election, and a lot could happen in the intervening period that could dilute or perhaps even nullify the effects of a conviction on public opinion, particularly if there is no federal trial in Washington for election subversion…
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Trump thrives on political division, but let’s give him credit where it’s due: He has managed to unite the country in opposition to his claim that he should be immune from criminal prosecution. It’s a stance that he’s taken all the way to the Supreme Court, and which has already helped delay his Jan. 6 trial for months.
Seventy percent of respondents rejected this position, including a large plurality (48 percent) of Republicans. Only 11 percent of all respondents endorsed Trump’s position that presidents should have criminal immunity for conduct while in office, and they were largely Republicans.
The result is a positive sign for the constitutional sensibilities of the American public, since Trump’s argument for immunity is absurd as a matter of law, history and democratic logic….
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The odds of a Trump trial in Washington this year may have gone down, but that has not deterred the public.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that Trump should stand trial in the Justice Department’s 2020 election subversion case before Election Day. Ninety percent of Democrats expressed that view, as did 65 percent of independents and even 26 percent of Republicans. These figures have largely held steady since we asked the question last August and are in line with the results from at least one other recent poll..
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Some conservative lawyers have recently argued that it would be improper to hold the trial before November, but their reasoning neglects two highly salient points — first, that federal judges must set trial dates that account for “the best interest of the public” as well as that of the defendant, and second, that a large majority of Americans want this trial to happen before November…..