Former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict may indeed be hurting him in the polls, according to data published Wednesday.
In a redo of a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, Trump’s three-point edge over President Joe Biden before the jury rendered its verdict shrank to just one point when respondents were quizzed after the decision.
The re-canvassing of the 2,000 voters provides a data-based reflection on the first conviction of a former president, and presidential candidate, though it may be no more than a snapshot this far out from the election.
Before the verdict, most Americans, polls showed, viewed the hush money case as less serious than Trump’s other legal cases.
The slight shift from the initial polls in April and May was especially prominent among young, nonwhite and less engaged Democratic-leaning voters, according to the new analysis. Twenty percent of Trump’s previous supporters who are Black are now supporting Biden while only 2 percent of non-Black previous Trump supporters decided to back Biden.
The New York Times/Siena College findings also showed that 46 percent of those polled approved of the guilty verdict while 33 percent disapproved and 16 percent said they hadn’t heard enough about it to form an opinion.
The poll is in line with other snap polls that were released days after the guilty verdict. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday showed that 10 percent of Republican registered voters said they were less likely to vote for the former president following the verdict. A Morning Consult poll of registered voters found that Biden gained three percentage points (45 percent) while support for Trump remained the same (44 percent).
Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes on Thursday for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. A 12-person jury delivered a unanimous verdict, ending the six-week trial.
Trump has said he plans to appeal the verdict but has meanwhile used it to attack the criminal justice system and raise money. His campaign said it collected $141 million in May, with nearly 38 percent coming soon after the verdict.
The New York Times/Siena College recontact poll consisted of 1,897 registered voters nationwide and was conducted on cell and landline telephones on June 3 and 4, 2024.
