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By Kate Plummer
Senior US News Reporter
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Former President Donald Trump could risk losing voters in the upcoming presidential election now that he was found guilty in his criminal hush money case, according to recent polls conducted before the verdict.
Trump, the presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged the payment was meant to prevent her from speaking publicly about her claims of having an affair with the former president.
On Thursday, a jury handed down a guilty verdict on all 34 felony counts following the trial, which lasted more than a month throughout April and May, while several states held their primary nominating contests.
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"This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt," Trump said outside the courtroom following the verdict. Trump, who has long denounced the prosecution as a "witch hunt," has said he is innocent of all charges in this case and other criminal and civil cases he is facing.
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Meanwhile, polls conducted prior to the verdict being announced indicated that those voting in November's general election would reconsider their allegiance to Trump if he were found guilty.
One poll, conducted by Leger for the New York Post between April 26 and 28, found that Trump would go from receiving 46 percent of the vote to 39 percent if he was found guilty. The support would fall to 37 percent if the former president is imprisoned, the poll found. Leger's survey polled 1,008 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of 3.09 percent.
A Marquette Law School poll conducted among 902 registered voters nationwide from May 6 to 15 found that a significant number of voters would abandon Trump in the case of a guilty verdict.
The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points, found that in a scenario where Trump was found guilty, 43 percent of respondents backed President Joe Biden, while 39 percent said they would vote for Trump. However, when asked who they would vote for if Trump was found not guilty, 44 percent said they would vote for Trump, and 38 percent said they would vote for Biden.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll produced by Langer Research Associates and conducted between April 25 to 30 that was published earlier this month, 80 percent of Trump's supporters said they will continue to stand by him if he was convicted of a felony in the hush money case. However, 20 percent of his base would either reconsider their support (16 percent) or withdraw their support of Trump (4 percent). The sample size of the subgroup of Trump supporters was 937 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.
Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email outside of business hours to comment on this story.
Speaking to Newsweek on Friday via email, Mark Shanahan who teaches American politics at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, said the verdict "won't change" people's opinion about Trump, but he could see support "melt away" in the long-term.
"Opinion on Trump is pretty much baked on across the country already, and last night's verdict won't change that. In the short term his polling, and indeed his fundraising may get a boost, but this may dissipate in the weeks and months to come as voters get beyond the emotion of the court's decision and focus on the fact that the former president was convicted by a jury of his peers: 12 citizens who weighed the evidence and simply did not believe him," Shanahan said.
He added: "Of course, this really matters only to the small percentage of undecided voters in half a dozen swing states who will decide this election. Will they buy into the victim story or concur that the law has finally caught up with a criminal who has used the courts to his own advantage for decades? Polls in the next few days will be largely meaningless. But post-sentencing, with other legal cases looming, the Trump campaign may well see support melt away."
The former president's sentencing is scheduled for July 11.
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