If you think Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts is going to help him - corporate donations aside - then think again. I figured this would take a couple of weeks to see. But it’s taken a day.
https://apple.news/AMSOwfKolTc-CsYXKn0Lyow
Donald Trump handed troubling news in back-to-back polls
June 01, 2024
Former President Donald Trump has been handed bad news in the form of two polls that suggest his felony conviction could hurt his chances of defeating President Joe Biden in November.
Trump, this year's presumptive GOP presidential nominee, was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records by a jury in New York on Thursday. The former president called the outcome a "disgrace," while describing himself as "a very innocent man" and claiming that "the real verdict" would be on Election Day.
A pair of polls that were conducted just after the conviction was announced and released on Friday offer evidence that Trump's chances of receiving a more favorable "verdict" at the ballot box in November may have been damaged by his conviction in Manhattan.
A poll released by Reuters/Ipsos on Friday night found that 10 percent of Republican voters said were "less likely" to vote for Trump due to his conviction. While 35 percent of GOP voters said they were "more likely," Reuters pointed out that the group "would be likely to vote for him regardless of the conviction."
Among independent voters, 25 percent were less likely to vote for Trump after the verdict, while 18 percent said they were "more likely." A 56 percent majority of independents said that the Trump verdict would have no impact on their choice of president.
The survey, conducted nationally among 2,556 adults, also found that Biden has a statistically insignificant lead over Trump, with 41 percent of respondents favoring the current president and 39 percent favoring Trump. Biden's lead was just within the poll's 2 percent margin of error.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to Newsweek's request for comment on the polling results by touting the former president's fundraising windfall and claiming there had been unspecified "polling increases" following his conviction.
"President Trump has seen an outpouring support, which has led to polling increases and record-shattering fundraising numbers that include close to $53 million in just 24 hours, 30% of those who are new donors," Cheung said in an email.
Regardless, a YouGov "snap poll" conducted among 3,040 U.S. adults hours after the verdict also suggested that Trump's conviction was anything but good news for the former president in an election that may be decided by a small number of votes in battleground states.
The poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed with the jury's verdict, with only 30 percent believing he was not guilty and 19 percent undecided. 47 percent said they thought Trump received a fair trial, while 37 percent said he did not.
Notably, 48 percent of independent voters who were polled agreed that Trump was guilty, compared to just 25 percent who said he was not guilty, although the degree to which a belief in Trump's guilt equates to an unwillingness to vote for the former president was unknown.
Multiple polls taken before the verdict hinted that Trump's status as a felon may be enough to decide the winner of the close election, with polls conducted in April and May finding that the ex-president would lose between 5 and 7 percent of the overall vote with a conviction.
Mark Shanahan, an American politics professor at the U.K.'s University of Surrey, told Newsweek earlier on Friday that the conviction "matters only to the small percentage of undecided voters in half a dozen swing states who will decide this election," while also predicting "The Trump campaign may well see support melt away" after his sentencing on July 11 and with additional legal cases looming.
Donald Trump handed troubling news in back-to-back polls - for those who love their polls.
Trump is STRONG in the real polls.
