About an hour after Donald Trump was convicted of felonies on Thursday, a cyclist rode past his towering gold hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in 99-degree heat to celebrate the New York jury's verdict.
“We got you, Trump! We've got you!” He shouted.
But inside the opulent Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, under crystal chandeliers and ventilated by air conditioners, a waiter called it a “witch hunt” and the former president's supporters were undeterred by his new title as a convicted felon.
“I don't care about that,” Amanda Ripley of Washington state said of Trump's 34 felonies for falsifying business records, part of a hush money scheme during his 2016 campaign to cover up a sex scandal with a porn actor.
Ripley was celebrating her 37th birthday at Trump's hotel with her husband and said she plans to vote for him again despite the convictions, in part because of his hardline immigration policies.
“Without a doubt, he could still be elected,” he said. “That would be fantastic.”
The perspective here is no surprise. Inside the hotel, Fox News was blaring from the TV in the bar, the gift shop was selling Trump hats, and the DJT restaurant's menu included a rum cocktail called “Death by Trial.”
Still, many questions remain about how the felony convictions will affect Trump's presidential campaign going forward. Thursday's unprecedented verdict makes Trump the first former president convicted of felonies, but that does not disqualify him from becoming president if he is elected in November. Depending on the charges, Trump could go to prison or be sentenced to probation.
For some of the tourists from around the country staying at the Las Vegas hotel on his behalf, Trump's condemnation was seen as a boost, not a deterrent, in their race against Democratic President Biden.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted this month found that 16% of Trump supporters would reconsider their support if he were found guilty as he was Thursday, and 4% would not vote for him.
Don Dutra, a veteran Republican visiting Las Vegas from San Antonio and who used to live in Fresno, said he plans to vote for Trump again, but won't if he's in prison.
While Dutra said there is “no way” Trump should be allowed to be elected president from prison, he said he believes he is not much different from previous presidents: He is simply the one who got caught.
“Clinton did worse, much worse in my opinion,” Dutra said outside the Trump hotel on Thursday, highlighting the Monica Lewinsky scandal and echoing baseless right-wing conspiracy theories about the Clintons.
Not everyone at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas was a fan of the former president; some have just reached an agreement.
Duane Baker, a councilman in Bellevue, Ohio, who plans to vote for Biden, said he “despises” Trump. He was having a drink at the Trump hotel bar just because a friend had won a trip after attending a timeshare presentation.
When asked if he thinks Trump's beliefs could keep him from being elected again, Baker at first laughed, recalling his “lock her up” chants about his rival Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But he started thinking seriously in November.
“For me, this is probably the first election (and I've been voting since 1977) where it's really the lesser of two evils,” he said. “It really is: who is the better choice between two bad decisions?”
