I don’t know what polls about Trump’s new status— convicted felon— will mean in November, but they give us a look at how people are thinking right now. By the time we go to vote— or decide not to— public opinion may have become even worse for Trump. On Friday Reuters released a poll by Ipsos showing that 10% of registered Republican voters say they are now less likely to vote for Señor T than they were before was convicted. Most Republicans say the verdict won’t affect them at all and the deranged MAGA contingent claim they are now more likely to vote for Trump, apparently preferring convicted criminals to normal people.
A new poll from Morning Consult indicates that 49% of independent voters and 15% of Republicans think Trump should drop out of the race for the presidency, presumably to “make a deal” that would lead to Biden (and Hochul and Kemp) pardoning him or that, at worst, he just pay a fine or get probation and not go to prison.
Jason Lange reported that “The potential loss of a tenth of his party's voters is more significant for Trump than the stronger backing of more than a third of Republicans, since many of the latter would be likely to vote for him regardless of the conviction. Among independent registered voters, 25% said Trump's conviction made them less likely to support him in November, compared to 18% who said they were more likely and 56% who said the conviction would have no impact on their decision.”
A trio of NY Times reporters noted that “the partisan divide in the verdict’s wake did not look so much like opposing sides of a chasm but like two alternate universes, one where the former president had been hounded and persecuted by his corrupt political enemies, the other where justice had finally been served to a career criminal. Where the two sides were even within shouting distance of each other was vanishingly small, if it existed at all. But a few voices in the Trump universe allowed that Trump may well have done something wrong, and a few in the anti-Trump sphere said they had finally been convinced to vote for his opponent, President Biden… [O]n the margins, with the remaining undecided voters, having a felon as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer could make the decision to pick Trump harder, maybe a lot harder… [A] Marquette Law School poll taken during the hush-money trial found that a modest lead for Trump among registered voters nationwide became a four-point lead for Biden if Trump were found guilty.”
Aaron Zitner and Catherine Lucey reported about how the Biden campaign is concentrating on reviving bad memories about Trump. Trump is making that a lot easier by doing things like that crackpot deranged press conference Friday that was filled with transparent lies. These two boards (above and below) were released by Biden’s campaign moments after Trump was finished spewing his nonsense.
“Democrats hope Trump’s guilty verdict,” wrote Zitner and Lacey, “is a reminder of his baggage, but most voters’ views are locked in; ‘They either love him or hate him’… Now. Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts gives Biden and his allies their best chance yet to jolt voters into recalling Trump as an agent of chaos and to argue that his personal behavior carries risks for the country… [But lots] of the undecided voters he needs most, many of whom are disengaged from politics, worried foremost about prices and hold an increasingly rosy view of Trump’s presidency. Those factors have made it hard for Democrats to make Trump’s personality and policies the most salient issue in the campaign— as they did successfully in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats made big congressional gains, and in the 2020 race that put Biden in the White House.”
The Biden strategy has been on display in recent days, as the campaign and the president himself have tried to reshape memories of their opponent. They have incessantly reminded voters that Trump-appointed justices helped overturn Roe v Wade. They have revived a comment from eight years ago, which Trump later retracted, in which he suggested women should face punishment for having abortions. A recent campaign ad, aimed at wavering Black voters, returns to 1989 in citing Trump’s call for the death penalty after Black and Latino men, known as the Central Park Five, were wrongfully arrested for a rape in New York City.
“Remember when he was trying to deal with Covid? He said, ‘Just inject a little bleach in your veins,’” Biden said at a White House event in April, one of several recent times he has raised Trump’s handling of the pandemic. During a press briefing in 2020, Trump had speculated about whether using disinfectant or solar light inside the body could treat Covid, comments he later walked back.
Biden’s team largely steered clear of commenting during the Trump trial. Following the verdict Thursday, Biden made brief comments from the White House on Friday, focusing on respect for the judicial system, rather than the details of the trial. He called it reckless and dangerous to label a trial rigged because someone doesn’t like the outcome. “We should never allow anyone to tear it down. As simple as that,” he said.
Many Democrats hope that the guilty verdict will break through, given the sizzle surrounding the case, which involved a porn actress, hush money and charges of falsified business records, and that the felony conviction of a former president is unprecedented. A Biden campaign pollster said they don’t expect any single event to change things overnight, but said this is a moment that can help push voters— particularly those not paying close attention— to “zoom in” on the unpopular aspects of Trump’s presidency.
…John Anzalone, who polled for the Biden campaign in 2020, said the recent past shows that the jury verdict can in fact shift voter opinions, inflicting the kind of damage that hurt Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016, when then-Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comeyannounced days before the election that fall that he was reopening an investigation into her use of a private email server for government business.
“It changed the dynamic of the race. It made her just as big a risk as Trump, and they went with someone new,” he said. In focus groups, voters told the campaign they believed that a Clinton presidency would be tied down with investigations.
“Voters are risk-averse,” Anzalone said. “They’ll think Trump is going to be in a quagmire of problems— new impeachment, trials— and all they’re going to care about is that, and that the real work is not going to get done, and so I think this is a tremendous problem for him.”
Polling has suggested that some voters would reconsider backing Trump if he were convicted of a felony, but it isn’t clear that they feel the same way now that the jury has given its verdict. The felony conviction of a former president is such an unusual event that many voters might not have known their reaction until the event actually occurred. And the expected millions of dollars in campaign ads yet to come, intended to shape voter views of the conviction, could have an effect.
In one recent survey, an NPR/Marist/PBS poll in late May, some 7% of Trump supporters and 11% of independents said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he were convicted in the hush-money trial.
Dan Pfeiffer wants Democrats to be singing about Trump’s conviction from the rooftops. It will only be a big deal if we make it a big deal. “After the verdict came in,” he wrote, “Trump went right to the cameras to spew a firehose’s worth of lies about the case. In an obviously coordinated effort, most major Republican officeholders put out statements slamming the verdict and reaffirming their support for Trump within minutes of the news breaking. MAGA media personalities went into overdrive, firing up the base with often dangerous rhetoric. Democrats took a decidedly different approach. The President did not appear before the cameras, and his campaign released a written statement. Many Democrats stayed silent, and those who did speak tended to say something relatively anodyne about how we should respect the rule of law. According to Friday morning’s Politico Playbook, Democrats seemed divided over how— and how much— to discuss Trump’s conviction.”
But not in the hottest race in Arizona. Conor O'Callaghan the top challenger running for the swing district seat help by lock-step Trumpist Dave Schweikert, told us yesterday that “MAGA world always screams about the need for law and order but hates it when it’s applied to their dear leader. The justice system worked here, plain and simple. I think Trump should be happy; he finally won the popular vote. While this is a good week for the rule of law, the final verdict will come on November 5th. We must rally behind President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot.”
Diane Young is running for the seat in the Detroit suburbs held by MAGA-symp John James. She told us that “James had no problem jumping on the Trump train of undermining our judicial system. Mr. Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers and now will be able to appeal his case just like every other American. I find it discusting that they think they are subject to a different set of rules than the rest of us. This is a dangerous road to go down.”
And not the only hot race in Wisconsin either, where progressive Eric Wilson isn’t letting the MAGA incumbent get away with any of his scripted bullshit. He told us that “Van Orden has been on an unhinged tirade for several days spewing Nazi and Communist sentiments. He has demonstrated that his temperament is not that of somebody who should be leading our country. He has an unhealthy fascination with the judge that presided over the case. Derrick, unfortunately, does not understand how the code of justice works in this country. For somebody that seems to talk about the constitution often, I question whether he’s ever read it. Trump had the right to jury trial, and got one. A jury of his peers found him guilty. Trump had the option to testify, and did not. Do the crime, you do the time. Derrick’s comparison of the situation to both Nazis and Communism, shows that he is wildly out of touch with the good people of this district. His overlay of a Russian flag on the US flag is unbecoming of a member of congress, and shameful from a veteran. Disgraceful Derrick keeps showing us time and time again that he’s wrong for Wisconsin and wrong for this nation.”
If you'd like to help Conor, Diane and Eric replace these three vulnerable MAGA Republicans, you can do it on our Flip Congress page here.
Pfeiffer wrote that he believes Democrats should take a more aggressive stance than they have in the last 24 hours. “One of President Obama’s cardinal rules of politics is that if you don’t talk about the giant elephant in the room, the voters will wonder what you are trying to hide. Trump’s conviction while running for President is a giant fucking elephant. Just ask yourself, how would Republicans handle it if Joe Biden were convicted of a misdemeanor related to the handling of classified information? Would they turn the other cheek and tell people to respect the verdict before pivoting to inflation or another issue?… The Republicans would use every weapon in their media arsenal to brand the President as a criminal in the eyes of voters. Heck, Trump, the GOP, and the MAGA media have called him ‘Crooked Joe’ absent a conviction, an indictment, or one iota of evidence. There is simply no need to recite rote talking points about the sanctity of the judicial system. Our opponent in the election was convicted of serious crimes; we should make him answer for it at every opportunity. The Republicans running up and down the ballot are slavishly devoted to defending that criminal. They should explain why they think a former President is above the law.”
Pfeiffer understands that “The media will move on in a matter of days. Other news will intrude. One of the core lessons of communications— especially in a world where the traditional press has a fraction of its previous reach— is that if you want people to know something, you have to tell them and then tell them again and again. Once you are so sick of saying something that you might puke, you probably need to say it a couple more times... The divide in the election is obvious. Democrats are doing very well with voters who pay close attention to the news. We are struggling with voters who get their news from social media or don’t follow the news at all. The best time to reach these sorts of voters is at the big moments when political news breaks out of its small, hermetically sealed bubble and into the broader culture. This is one of those rare moments in post-2020 America when non-political people are talking about politics. According to the reporting, some Democrats think the fact that people are already talking about Trump’s conviction means they don't have to. I believe the opposite. When people are paying attention, you have to do everything in your power to shape that conversation.”