As almost everybody in the world probably knows by now, Former President Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by a Manhattan jury on Thursday, 30 May, becoming the first President in US history to be found guilty in criminal court.
Some Democrat strategists and supporters were really ‘banking on’ the conviction to, if not completely sink President Trump’s reelection campaign, to reinvigorate President Biden’s ahead of the 2024 election. They had some polling data on their side, gathered at the start of the trial, which showed that a felony conviction would alienate independent voters from the former POTUS.
Has that theory held up?
A convenient answer would be that it is too early to tell. However, this may not hold much water in this case, given the fact that usually when bad news breaks for a political candidate, it has the most impact right after the event.
A handful of polls have been conducted since the verdict was delivered. Some of their results are good for President Trump, some are bad—however,
what is certain is that he avoided the seismic collapse some envisioned for him in case of a felony conviction.
Over the weekend, a Forbes/HarrisX poll showed him leading Biden nationally by two points, while a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed the exact inverse, with Biden in the lead by two. A Morning Consult poll published on Sunday, 2 June had Biden up by one, a three-point shift in the Democratic incumbent. However, in an unexpected turn the same polling firm put out another poll on Tuesday, where President Trump has reinstated his one-point lead. In an I&I/TIPP poll, the two contenders are tied, whereas the same pollster showed President Biden ahead by two points at the start of May.
On the flip side, a CBS News/YouGov poll showed that 57 per cent of voters agreed with the verdict; and a set of polls by ABC News/Ipsos gave a net favourability rating of -25 points to President Trump, and -22 points to President Biden.
All in all, President Trump still maintains his lead in the national popular vote over President Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics aggregate, leading by 0.7 points head-to-head as of the time of writing this, and by 1.9 points in the five-way race.
Guilty Verdict Leads to Staggering Fundraising Frenzy for President Trump
Where there was unequivocal good news for President Trump and his campaign after the verdict was in fundraising.
In the first 24 hours after the historic guilty verdict, President Trump’s campaign raised a whopping $52.8 million,
according to the announcement of the campaign itself. If this is true, that would be a shattering new record, beating out the $26 million the Biden camp raised in one day in August 2020, after they announced that Kamala Harris would be their Vice Presidential nominee, the first black female candidate on a presidential ticket.
The Trump campaign does not have to declare their fundraising numbers with the Federal Election Commission until later this month.
President Trump has also seen a huge boost in social media engagement, with hundreds of thousands of users liking every post on his official Instagram account since the verdict. Meanwhile, President Biden has failed to cross the 100,000-like threshold since then on his official account on the same platform, despite the user demographic there favouring the Democrats.
Elon Musk, one of the most influential figures of our time, has also come out in defence of the former POTUS facing unjust prosecution.
President Trump has to go before Judge Merchan again on 11 July to be sentenced. While most experts believe it is unlikely, he could be given a prison sentence, which he would have to serve even pending appeal—while being assisted by his Secret Service detail, in a twisted turn of events…
The restrictions placed on him for his sentence could hurt his ability to campaign. However, such measures could also energize his voters, and win the sympathy of independents. To get back to the polling data, Donald Trump’s surge nationally started with the release of his mugshot in August 2023; and he has remained in the lead or tied in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate since September 2023.
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