The sometimes gripping coverage of former President Trump's trial was no surprise, as a uniquely divisive figure sat for more than a month at the defense table, the first president to face criminal charges and the possibility of jail time. . .
But despite all the spectacle of the trial, many political observers predict that the impact of Thursday's 34 guilty verdicts will be moderate and unlikely to change the dynamic in a presidential race that appears extremely close, just over five months away. of the last day of voting.
The New York jury's verdict puts Trump in an unprecedented position: trying to win the White House as a criminal, guilty of falsifying business records to bury details of his extramarital one-night stand with a former porn star.
While an appeal by Trump could still remove the threat of probation or prison, he will still have to explain to voters why a man convicted of political cover-up should be trusted with the most powerful office in the world.
Trump has provoked both admiration and despair (depending on the political leanings of his audience) for his ability to survive what some considered fatal missteps.
“I've already given up my membership in the He-Surely-Can't-Survive-This club,” David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama's two successful presidential campaigns, said in an interview. “Look how many other times He has gotten away with it. He is an extraordinary escape artist.” (Axelrod and other experts spoke before the verdict.)
In 2016, candidate Trump told a campaign audience that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone without losing his core supporters. Although the charges in the hush money case fall short of assault with a deadly weapon, they represent real-world evidence of Trump's apparent invulnerability to political norms.
I've already given up my membership in the “He-Surely-Can't-Survive-This” club.
—David Axelrod
With about a month left before the 2016 race, a previously secret video showed Trump bragging about his ability to sexually take advantage of women because of his fame. Many observers believed that the “Access Hollywood” taping effectively ended his chances of winning the presidency. But Trump overtook front-runner Hillary Clinton in the final weeks of the race and won the presidency.
When Trump was rejected by voters in 2020 in favor of Joe Biden, some experts again predicted that Trump's days were numbered. But this year he brushed aside all of his Republican primary rivals, despite a pair of legal setbacks: a jury verdict finding him responsible for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and a judge's order to pay a fine of 454 million dollars for falsehood. inflating the value of his real estate empire.
Trump's condemnation comes at a time when Americans are deeply divided, a fracture exacerbated by a deeply fragmented information ecosystem. Major media outlets analyzed the detailed evidence presented by prosecutors at the trial, while right-wing media reinforced Trump's claims that the charges amounted to a political coup by Democratic prosecutors.
After closing arguments Tuesday, a Newsmax cable television commentator suggested that the evidence in the case pointed to crimes, not committed by Trump but by Stormy Daniels, who testified that she had sexual relations with Trump in 2006, and by the prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer. who testified that he helped facilitate the payments to keep Daniels quiet about the one-night stand.
A Marquette Law School poll conducted in mid-May suggested the verdict could have some effect on the presidential race.
When a national sample of voters was presented with the possibility of Trump being found guilty in the New York case, 43% said they would vote for Biden, 38% would vote for Trump, and 18% said they would vote for someone else. or would stay. undecided.
Faced with the opposite result, with Trump's acquittal, the poll leaned in his favor, and voters preferred him between 44% and 38% over Biden. Again 18% were in favor of another candidate or were undecided.
But both results fall within the margin of error of more than 6%, said Charles Franklin, director of the Wisconsin-based survey. And previous experience suggests that public opinion about the secret money case could have been well settled for many voters long before the verdict, because the facts had been aired for many months, Franklin said.
Franklin compared the long lead-up to the verdict to the lengthy public debate that took place during Trump's first impeachment trial, when the former reality TV host was accused of soliciting foreign interference in an attempt to help win the 2020 election.
“When the House considered impeachment, then voted to impeach him, and then the Senate voted to acquit him, public opinions [of Trump] and from the impeachment and then the conviction they did not change,” Franklin said. He predicted that future polls on this week's trial verdict would likely show only a modest change in voter sentiment.
Charles Cook, an independent political analyst based in Washington, agreed that it was difficult to imagine the verdict swaying many voters.
“Undecided voters, particularly 'pure independents' who do not lean toward either party, tend to get carried away by other issues and have other priorities in mind when making their voting decisions,” Cook said by email. He said the small group of voters who do not have hardened opinions about the 2024 race “don't follow current events much, believe that all politicians and political parties are corrupt and are not particularly moved by this.”
The idea that Trump could completely escape the wrath of voters seemed unfathomable to some.
“At some point, there's going to have to be a discussion about whether we want a liar and a convict in the Oval Office,” said Ben Austin, a Los Angeles Democrat who worked in President Clinton's White House. “I mean, what kind of country are we?”
Reed Galen, a lifelong Republican who left the party and co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, wondered if GOP voters who once favored former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley might be put off by the revelations. secret money case.
“Some of them were already very skeptical of Trump, and this could get them off Trump Island, hopefully once and for all,” Galen said.
But Trump stalwarts say his detractors should have recognized long ago that he is immune to criticism from the mainstream media and old-guard Republicans. Even those who have accepted that Trump is a flawed candidate said they consider him preferable in a country they are convinced he is on the wrong path under President Biden.
“At this point, a lot of Arizonans are just numb to the trial and all this,” said Stan Barnes, a Republican who runs a public affairs and lobbying firm in the battleground state. “They are much more focused on what kind of policies they want from the president. When Trump was in the White House, mortgage rates were [as low as] two and a half percent, unemployment was [low.] And the southern border felt safe.”
Barnes said nothing that happened in the Manhattan courtroom would change those views, and he predicted that many Americans will be willing to vote again to promote Trump and his “America First” agenda.
