With just five months to go until Election Day, Donald Trump’s conviction will test the public’s tolerance of his movements and trust in the American justice system.
The “new normal” is taking hold. Former President Donald Trump is now a convicted felon, awaiting appeal, after Thursday’s verdict in New York’s trial over secret cash bills to a porn star. His supporters are rallying to his side, donating cash and raising objections to what many of them see as a rigged legal system.
Meanwhile, Democrats who have long dreamed of seeing Mr. Trump’s bars (still unlikely but not very unlikely) are applauding. Others, like President Joe Biden, are betting things more cautiously. Candidates from both parties running for other offices will also have to strategize around The New Truth of a Candidate Convicted of 34 Crimes.
But in the Trump-Biden presidential rematch brewing, there is at least one point on which both campaigns agree: the “real verdict” will come on Election Day, November 5. According to political analysts, the days after the trial are an era of mistrust and confusing assumptions about Mr. Trump’s impact.
“All of us who knew there was no way [Trump] could be elected after the ‘Access Hollywood’ video in 2016, we’re a little cautious right now,” says Dan Schnur, communications director for Republican Sen. John McCain. Presidential crusade of the year 2000 and now independent.
The video, in which Trump rudely bragged about kidnapping women, was leaked a month before the 2016 election and appears to doom the Republican nominee’s chances of becoming president. In fact, in November of the same year, he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. he still won in the Electoral College.
Today, in the average of primary votes prior to RealClearPolitics’ conviction, Trump has a razor-thin lead over Biden. Now all eyes are on the post-conviction investigations. A late-night YouGov poll of more than 2,600 U. S. voters uncovered that part. Many Republicans are more likely to vote for Trump since the verdict, but the long-term effect of the verdict on voting habits remains to be seen.
Many polls conducted prior to this prediction showed that a small portion of the Republican electorate was unwilling to vote for M. Trump if he were convicted, or at least to reconsider their support. But such polls cannot simulate the real situations of media politics and responses. of public figures, adding Mr. Trump, pollsters say.
On Friday, the former president spoke for more than half an hour at Trump Tower in New York, calling the trial “rigged” and that the president judged a “devil. “Trump also said he would appeal the sentence, which included a verdict guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to discreet cash invoices to porn actor Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had a sexual relationship.
For more than six weeks, the trial required Trump’s presence in the courtroom. Now that he’s done, he has more time to campaign: He still has doubts about the consequences of a July 11 conviction. This means more opportunities to refresh the public’s impressions and defend their position in favor of another mandate.
For Democrats, the task now is to communicate about the secrecy case in the context of the other three ongoing criminal cases against Trump, explains Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist. These cases involve an alleged mishandling of classified documents, his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and an extortion case in Georgia related to his alleged attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election in that state.
“Is he someone you should trust with your career in the long run?”suggests as a crusade message.
More broadly, Finney and others suggest, Biden and Democrats will also have to focus on issues that many voters fear, such as the economy.
Schnur, a former GOP strategist, says Biden has struggled for months with elements of his base over issues such as the war in Gaza and climate change. The threat to Mr. Biden is that he will vote or vote for a third party.
“A lot of those disgruntled progressives say that because Biden hasn’t been as competitive on his issues as they’d like, there’s no genuine difference between the two candidates,” Biden said. Schnur, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School. The question is whether Biden’s crusade can use this [verdict] to convince the Democratic base that there is a genuine difference between him and Trump. “
So far, Biden and his crusade for reelection have been reactive. Immediately after the verdict, the White House Office of Counsel simply said, “We respect the rule of law and have no additional comment. “Biden’s crusade raised money through the verdict. , sending emails stating that the only way to keep Mr. Trump out is “through the ballot box. ”
On Friday, Biden himself commented for the first time on Trump’s verdict, calling Biden “deranged. ”
But Friday’s occasion highlighted the challenge the president faces in maintaining the Democratic coalition: the departure of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia from the party’s ranks. Senator Manchin announced that he had re-registered as an independent, raising the hypothesis that he may simply run for governor or even be re-elected to the Senate under that banner.
For some rejected Republican candidates, Trump’s conviction may become a double-edged sword. In Maryland, moderate former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan is leading a competitive race for Senate and is expected to appeal to any of the pro-Trumpers. and anti-Trump Democrats in November.
As Thursday’s verdict was about to be read, Hogan, a Trump critic, urged Americans to “respect the verdict and due process. ” Soon after, Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, retorted, “You just finished your campaign. “
For other Republicans, Trump’s conviction generated a huge fundraiser, as it did for Trump himself. On Friday morning, the Trump crusade announced that it had raised $38. 4 million following the verdict, much of which would come from new donors. Traffic to the fundraising site was so strong that it came to a temporary halt, according to the crusade.
In Arizona, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is running in the Republican Senate primary in opposition to former TV host and Trump loyalist Kari Lake, said his fundraising page had crashed.
“It’s not just Trump. La people like me are benefiting” from the verdict, Sheriff Lamb said Thursday. “I did a fundraiser tonight and those other people were upset. “
Writer Story Hinckley contributed to this report.
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