Dem
51
GOP
49
As a general election campaign between Joe Biden and Donald Trump gets increasingly likely, people are starting to wonder whether Trump's upcoming criminal trials might affect the election results. There are two ways this could happen. First, even though the federal trials won't be televised, the reporting of them will blot out all other news the first few days of each trial and dominate the news for the rest of the trial. The Georgia RICO trial is likely to be televised because Georgia law states that the judge gets to decide if he or she wants it to be televised and the judge in the RICO case, Scott McAfee, has a long history of allowing television cameras in his courtroom. The news will have witness after witness after witness testifying under oath that Trump did things that are illegal. For some people, the testimony may be the first time they have heard compelling evidence that Trump broke the law.
Second, Trump could be convicted of one or more felonies before the election. For some people, voting for a convicted felon could be a bridge too far and they might just refuse to vote for him. Even if these people stay home on Election Day or vote for a third party, if enough Trump supporters in swing states decide not to vote for him, it could cost Trump the state.
Pollsters understand this and are starting to ask about it. Asking: "If you heard testimony that Trump broke the law would it affect your vote?" is probably too vague and meaningless since many people can't imagine what that testimony would be like. On the other hand, questions about an actual conviction are more concrete and more likely to get an accurate answer. So pollsters are starting to ask about the effect of a conviction.
The main conclusion is that a very large number of Trump supporters would stick with him, even if he is convicted. But in swing states, even a small loss of supporters could be enough to flip the state. A Siena College poll of the swing states last month, for example, showed that a conviction would flip the aggregate vote from Trump +4 to Biden +10, a 14-point swing. That's the difference between President Trump and President Biden.
Other pollsters have asked similar questions with mixed results. An Ipsos poll that included Robert Kennedy Jr. had Trump winning by 2 points but in a head-to-head Trump-Biden poll it was a tie. But when Ipsos asked if the respondent would vote for Trump if he were a convicted criminal, 59% said they wouldn't. This is a poor question. Ipsos should have just asked the horse race questions again, but now assuming a conviction.
A Vanderbilt University poll of Tennessee voters shows Trump's support dropping from 45% to 37% as a result of conviction. That wouldn't be enough to flip Tennessee but that would certainly guarantee Biden wins in all the swing states.
Let's keep going. A Quinnipiac University poll showed that 38% of the voters were committed to Trump absent a conviction but that dropped to 32% if he were a convicted felon on Election Day.
Finally, a Wall Street Journal poll showed the least effect of all. Without a conviction, Trump would win the popular vote by 4 points and with a conviction he loses it by 1 point.
These polls all asked the questions in different ways, but they all showed that a conviction would matter. Also, none of them factored in the possible devastating effects of testimony by insiders. Suppose Kenneth "The Cheese" Chesebro, Mark Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani all got on the witness stand and basically said: "Trump knew he lost the election but wanted to stay in power at all costs, so we knowingly and intentionally conspired to steal the election any way we could." Would that move the needle? We don't know and can't know because people can't imagine that happening. But it could happen as the various players try to save their own necks.
But these questions are all irrelevant if Trump succeeds in delaying all the trials until after the election.
Politico's Steven Shepard is not convinced that a conviction might matter so much. The Hollywood Access tape, the Stormy Daniels scandal, and so many other things that pundits thought would be the end of Trump weren't. His base is so devoted to him that maybe nothing matters anymore. Shepard is aware of the polls cited above, but notes that the questions were poorly formulated in some of them and they weren't actual state polls listing all the candidates likely to be on the ballot. Shepard also notes that while many Republicans say Trump should not run if he is convicted, when they enter the polling booth and the names on the ballot are Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and a couple of minor party or independent candidates, raw partisanship may rear its ugly head and they may vote for the person with the (R) after their name, everything else be damned.
As time goes by, pollsters are likely to sharpen their questions, but for so many people, the possibility of Trump actually being convicted is so unimaginable, it is hard to draw solid conclusions until there are a lot more data and some quality focus groups. (V)