Guilty or not guilty, Trump verdict won’t sway most voters, poll finds

As a jury deliberates in New York on criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, 2 in 3 registered American voters say a guilty verdict would have no effect on which choice they plan to vote for in presidential election, according to a PBS NewsHour/NPR article. /Marist Survey.

Overall, 67 percent of voters said a conviction would make no difference to them in November, including 74 percent of independents. That’s a significantly higher number than the percentage of Republicans or Democrats who said it wouldn’t change their vote.

In fact, 25% of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were convicted by a jury, while 27% of Democrats said they would be less likely to vote for him – a division that highlights hardened partisan perspectives. on candidate Trump.

For Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, if Trump “ends up being found guilty, I think he will have a much less chance of winning. But (the Democrats) don’t need that to win.”

Republican strategist Douglas Heye said he thought a guilty verdict would “give food for thought to a subset of voters, but not a ton of voters.”

A small number of Republicans – 10 percent – ​​and independent voters – 11 percent – ​​said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he were convicted.

The latest poll also asked voters whether Trump’s acquittal would affect their voting preference. A large majority – 76 percent – ​​appeared to view a not guilty verdict as maintaining the status quo, saying the outcome would make no difference to them on Election Day.

Because Manhattan court proceedings are not televised, Trump’s trial has gone largely unnoticed by many Americans, said Heye, who noted that he has traveled extensively across the country in recent weeks.

“No one is talking about the trial except people in Washington and New York,” he said. “I’m not surprised anymore.”

The survey data supports this assertion. Last month, 55 percent of Americans said they were paying little or no attention to Trump’s secret trial, according to a May 1 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

The lack of public interest in Trump’s latest trial is undeniable, Rosenberg said, adding that it highlights how disengaged people remain at this point in the election cycle. “People don’t know that the economy is growing, not declining. Why do we think they’re going to know about Trump’s lawsuits?”

But that is likely to change as Election Day approaches, he said.

“As the American people register and go through the process of moving from being disinterested to being voters, the information they get is much more likely to benefit (Democrats) than Republicans,” Rosenberg said .

Biden versus Trump (and the third-party factor)

If the election were held today, 50% of registered voters nationally said they would vote for President Joe Biden, according to this latest poll. Meanwhile, 48% said they would vote to re-elect former President Donald Trump.

That head-to-head has remained essentially unchanged over the past two months and is consistent with what many national polls have shown: “a close, competitive election,” Rosenberg said.

For Heye, it’s significant that, even though Trump has been embroiled in scandal for years, the public’s overall enthusiasm for the former president is statistically tied to that for Biden — a reminder, he said, that both candidates are deeply unpopular. In this latest poll, Biden’s approval rating remains at 41 percent among all Americans, while his disapproval rating is stuck at 54 percent.

“This should ring alarm bells more among Democrats than Republicans,” Heye said.

“I think the idea that Trump has a lead is not consistent with the data we have,” Rosenberg said. A headline-grabbing New York Times/Siena poll in mid-May found that Trump had an edge in a handful of battleground states, like Arizona and Michigan. Most recently, Trump received support from former Republican rival Nikki Haley, who continued to undermine the presumptive nominee’s votes in the primaries despite dropping out of the race in March. Haley’s supporters are seen as a key group to win over, and the Biden campaign has been trying hard.

With the 2024 presidential election six months away, voters still have plenty of time to decide who will lead the country. About one in four Americans said in the poll that they were not following this election closely, if at all. Rosenberg, who also called the current race “a real fight right now,” said that once voters start looking at the records of both presumptive candidates, they will see that Biden “has been a good president” and that “the country is better.”

At the same time, he predicted, voters will find “Trump’s performance on the ground far more erratic and worrying” than in 2016 or 2020, and that “his agenda is far more extreme and dangerous.”

When voters were asked to choose from a wider range of candidates, this poll found that Trump had a small advantage: 44% of voters said they would vote for Trump, 40% said they would vote for Biden and 8% would vote for independent candidate Robert. F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy — who in the days following this latest poll was rejected by Libertarians for party nomination and also said he opposed the removal of Confederate monuments — received the support of 17 percent of independent voters.

“He’s not a strong candidate and he’s not going to be very publicly present in the election,” Rosenberg said, adding that beyond his famous last name, the candidate and his agenda are not popular with many. most Democrats. However, “fringe candidates can impact elections,” he said.

Eight in 10 registered voters nationally said they would “definitely vote” in November, although that enthusiasm was less likely among younger voters. Sixty-nine percent of Gen Z and millennials said they would vote without fail, compared to 93 percent of the Silent Generation. In this poll, younger voters (who seemed less confident as a generation to vote compared to others) preferred Biden over Trump in a head-to-head match (52 percent to 46 percent), while voters the oldest favored Trump over Biden (53 percent to 47 percent).

A growing share of nationally registered voters say they know who they will vote for in the 2024 presidential election and nothing will change their minds. In this latest poll, 66 percent of registered voters nationally say they already know which candidate has their vote, an increase of 6 percentage points since April. In another demonstration of the enthusiasm gap among young people, Generation Z and millennial registered voters were the most likely to still weigh their options.

Public attitudes towards the Gaza war

The percentage of Americans who think the United States provides too much military aid to Israel (35%) has increased 4 percentage points since November, according to this latest poll, taken days before a deadly Israeli strike on a camp civilians in Gaza City. from Rafah.

At the same time, a growing number of Americans believe the United States is being too generous to the Palestinians. Twenty-nine percent think the country is doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, up from 22 percent last November. At the same time, the percentage of people who think the United States should do more in humanitarian aid is falling from 40 percent to 29 percent over the past six months.

And yet, overall, more than a third of Americans (36%) believe the United States provides sufficient humanitarian aid, according to this latest poll.

When given a range of options on what role the United States should play in the war, about half of Americans (48%) said the United States should support Israel’s right to stand. defend against Hamas while also using their influence to encourage Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. Mary McCord, a former Justice Department acting assistant attorney general for national security, said the data suggests there may be more consensus around U.S. policy on the current war between Israel and Gaza than some might expect. think.

“Polarization is driven at the margins by people who are more vocal and whose positions are more publicized,” said McCord, a law professor at Georgetown University. “They push the extremes. It creates an impression that is absorbed by the population that we are further apart from each other than the majority of the population.”

Although polls are always only a snapshot — a survey conducted this week, for example, following the widely condemned Rafah blast, might have yielded different results — the percentage of Americans who say they favor Israel’s defense far exceeds 25 percent. Americans who say the U.S. should withdraw support for Israel until a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza (which 38% of Gen Z and millennials support). It’s also significantly more than 23 percent of Americans who believe the United States should fully support Israel’s military actions against Hamas (an idea supported by 32 percent of the Silent Generation).

PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a May 21-23 survey of 1,261 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points, 1,122 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points and 907 registered voters who definitely plan to vote in the November general election with a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.