Will Trump’s criminal conviction lose him the 2024 election?
The former president insisted this hush-money trial was a part of a ‘witch-hunt’ - but in light of his guilty verdict, the swing voters he needs to win back the keys to the White House may not agree.
Donald Trump’s attempt to discredit his criminal conviction has been under way for weeks after a series of polls suggested a guilty verdict could damage the former president’s chances of winning back the White House.
Trump’s backers echo his claims of persecution and election interference but analysts believe there will still be some lasting damage despite his remarkable ability to absorb blows that would sink any other candidate.
The campaign will no doubt be quick to pump out fundraising appeals and money-spinning souvenirs, as it did with T-shirts featuring Trump’s infamous Georgia mugshot, which brought in dollars 1.7 million in the first week they were on sale.
The question is whether the stigma of becoming the first presidential felon will sway enough undecided voters in the key swing states to be decisive in the election this November.
“I don’t want to say people are lying but people are historically really bad in terms of predicting their future behaviour and future thinking in polls,” Steven Greene, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, said. “The more speculative the question becomes, the more unreliable the results are.”
Some 36 per cent of independent voters told Ipsos in March that a guilty verdict would make them less likely to support Trump, while only 9 per cent of Republicans said the same. But “less likely” does not mean withdrawing support or much less switching to President Biden or another candidate.
Greene believes the Trump argument “the deep state is just out to get me” will “play less effectively in light of this conviction”.
Yet he has been written off before – during the 2016 campaign, when a recording emerged of him bragging about sexual assault; over the inquiry by the special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian influence in his election victory; and, most notoriously, after the rampage by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Despite all that, along with four criminal cases and a civil judgment of sexual assault against the author E Jean Carroll, Trump remains slightly ahead in polls against Biden.
“I think it’s only reasonable to think it will hurt him,” Greene said. “The big unknown is how much. Is it enough to change the result of an election? Maybe. But the phrase I’m using about Trump is ‘uncharted territory’. We’ve never had anything remotely like this, in terms of predicting the political outcome.”
One impact that could damage Trump is media coverage of his campaign. “I suspect that to some degree, the tenor of coverage around Trump will be changed in ways that are not helpful for him,” Greene said. “Much like coverage around Hillary Clinton and her emails in 2016 was definitely something that hurt her campaign.”
Bill Kristol, a vocal member of the Republican “Never Trump” faction, cited another poll suggesting a small group could peel away. He wrote this week: “I know, I know – so many other things that should have mattered in judging Donald Trump’s fitness for the presidency don’t actually seem to have mattered. (Shall we discuss January 6?) He’s gotten away with so, so much.
“Still, this is almost certainly the only one of the four cases against Trump that will come to trial before the election. A guilty verdict [allows] anti-Trump forces to say for the next five months to American voters: Do you really want a convicted felon as president?”
An ABC poll this month found 80 per cent of Trump supporters would stick with him after a guilty verdict, 16 per cent would reconsider and 4 per cent said they would withdraw their support.
“Those numbers in response to a hypothetical question are likely much higher than the actual number of voters who’d desert Trump once the Maga [Make America Great Again] noise machine gets to work discrediting a guilty verdict,” Kristol said. “Still, if even a couple of per cent of his supporters desert Trump, that would be meaningful.”
A crucial factor, he believes, is the approach of the Biden campaign. It has been pretty hopeless, he said, at building admiration for Biden’s achievements. Will it be able to capitalise on Trump’s setbacks?
“The Biden campaign needs to engage in a comprehensive effort to bring home to Americans what a jury of Trump’s peers has found,” Kristol said. “They need to remind Americans, over and over, that such a finding is unprecedented in the case of an ex-president. They need to say that it disqualifies him from the presidency.
“June is the month when ‘convicted felon’ can get stamped across Trump’s forehead. But this won’t happen without a concerted effort to make it happen.”
Scarred by previous predictions of Trump’s demise, Kristol hedged on the ultimate impact: “By itself, that won’t win the race. But it could help improve the playing field.”
Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican analyst, is sceptical the trial will affect the election among swing state voters, who “look at the economy” and “prioritise inflation, immigration and abortion more than anything else”.
Trump is masterful at turning adversity into victimhood, he said. “Every time Trump looks like he’s done, his numbers go up – from the indictments, from the investigations, from being thrown off the state ballots, from saying things that no other person can get away with.
“[The trial] will be a deciding factor in whether you trust Trump or trust Biden but things that are affecting people in their own daily lives are actually a higher priority. In the end, which one is going to make life more meaningful, more liveable and more affordable? I think that’s what’s going to determine the election.”
The Times
