Donald Trump enjoys major election campaign win

Donald Trump has enjoyed a surprise victory in his battle for The White House with Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump will not be sentenced over his New York criminal conviction until after November’s US election, a surprise decision that injects further uncertainty into his bid to return to power.

The former president had been scheduled to face sentencing on September 18, after a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment on the eve of the 2016 election to silence a porn star’s claim that they had an affair.

But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Juan Merchan announced on Friday (local time) that he would postpone the sentencing hearing until November 26.

Mr Trump – the Republican candidate in the neck-and-neck election race against Vice President Kamala Harris – faces a sentence ranging from probation to four years in prison.

Donald Trump holds a press conference at Trump Tower after a hearing at a New York appeals court on a separate charge. Picture: AFP

While Mr Trump won a delay in sentencing on hush money payments to a porn star, he is appealing a civil case brought by E. Jean Carroll. Picture: AFP

He had pushed to delay the hearing, in part to give his lawyers more time to challenge the bombshell conviction using a recent Supreme Court verdict that declared presidents were immune from prosecution for their official acts.

“This is not a decision this court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” Judge Merchan said in a written decision.

“This matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this nation’s history.

Mr Trump, 78, became the first US president to be charged with a crime last year, when he was indicted in four separate criminal cases including in New York.

He was convicted in the Manhattan Criminal Court in May.

Americans will now head to the polls on November 5 without knowing whether Mr Trump will be hit with a jail term. If that was to occur and he was the president-elect, his punishment would likely be suspended until after his second four-year term in the White House.

In a post on social media, he said the case should be “terminated as we prepare for the most important election in the history of our country”, as he again claimed he “did nothing wrong”.

“It is a political attack against me … and is a case that should never have been brought,” Mr Trump said, falsely blaming Ms Harris for the prosecution that was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Judge Merchan also pushed back his ruling on the immunity issue from September 16 to November 12, a week after the election.

He had originally been due to sentence Mr Trump on July 11.

“Adjourning decision on the motion and sentencing, if such is required, should dispel any suggestion that the court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office,” Judge Merchan wrote.

E. Jean Carroll leaves the courthouse after Trump's lawyers sought to overturn the jury's finding of sexual abuse. Picture: Getty Images

It remained unclear whether a sentence handed down before the election would have harmed or helped Mr Trump, whose popularity soared last year amid his unprecedented legal peril.

The other three criminal cases against him – two of which relate to his effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat, as well as separate charges over his mishandling of classified files – have ground to a halt and will not proceed to trials before the election.

Two of them are federal proceedings which Mr Trump could throw out if he returned to the White House.

Originally published as Donald Trump enjoys major election campaign win