POLL: Trump Verdict Doesn’t Move the Needle on Public Perception of Case

A recent poll indicates that the guilty verdicts in the Manhattan trial of former President Donald Trump have not made much of an impact on how people perceive the case. The ABC/Ipsos poll, released Sunday, also shows that a significant minority of people still have no opinion.

A plurality of Americans, 50%, think former President Donald Trump's guilty verdict on all 34 counts in his hush money trial was correct, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds, and almost as many, 49%, think he should end his 2024 presidential campaign over the result.
Still, following the historic criminal trial that ended this week in a first-ever conviction of a former president, Trump's favorability has remained stable at 31%, according to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel. Trump was found guilty of 34 counts on Thursday in his trial related to falsifying business records regarding a payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election in order to keep her quiet about their alleged affair.

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One interesting data point is that a significantly larger portion of the people surveyed thought that the trial was politically motivated.

Forty-seven percent of Americans said they think the charges against Trump in this case were politically motivated, while 38% say they were not. At the same time, the slight majority at 51%, think Trump intentionally did something illegal in this case. Twelve percent think Trump did something wrong but not intentionally, and 19% believe he did not do anything wrong.

It's important to note that, as of this writing, President Biden's job approval rating is still underwater; the RealClearPolitics average of job approval polls is 40.5 percent approval—against 56.2 percent disapproving. Those are catastrophic numbers for a president seeking reelection, but then, no president seeking reelection has been facing an opponent that is dealing with unprecedented legal attacks from all sides.

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The latest round of battleground state polls also shows Trump maintaining his lead in those key swing states following the verdict.

As in most presidential contests, independents will have an outsized influence on the final results. The lines have been drawn among both Democrats and Republicans; it's likely the rancorous nature of the campaign has sealed that deal. Independents, in this survey, appear to be pretty evenly split.

Forty-five percent of Independents and 51% of double-haters (those who disapprove of both candidates) think the hush-money trial was politically motivated, compared to 83% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats.

Bear in mind that "independent" does not mean "centrist." Independents are people not affiliated with a party and range across the political spectrum; so, while it's common to think of independents as the fuzzy middle ground, that's not necessarily the case.

It's early in the game yet. The Trump verdict was delivered only hours ago. It remains to be seen how much impact it will have on the election. And here's the thing: Polling over the last few years has been decidedly mixed; pollsters got the 2016 election in particular spectacularly wrong. As I've been saying since the verdict was announced in the Trump Manhattan trial, we are entering an undiscovered country now; pollsters may have to dramatically change some of their assumptions if they hope to forecast the final results with any accuracy. Add to that the fact that, in every election, everywhere, ever, turnout is key. As of now, following this verdict, many people will crawl in their bellies through a field full of thumbtacks, fire ants, and Tabasco sauce to vote for Donald Trump. That is a factor that can't be determined or evaluated by polling.

You can read the poll and results in its entirety here, while the topline and methodology can be read here.