Trump hush money verdict unlikely to sway most voters: Poll

A new poll released Thursday had some positive news for former President Donald Trump‘s reelection chances as he awaits a verdict in his New York hush money trial.

The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist national poll showed 67% of registered voters nationally wouldn’t be swayed by a guilty verdict against Trump, while 15% said it would make them more likely to vote for him. Another 17% said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

Jurors are in the process of deciding whether the former president is guilty or not of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

A verdict could come at any point Thursday, though the exact timing remains unclear. The 12-member jury is on day two of deliberations after the prosecution and defense wrapped up their closing arguments on Tuesday.

Among Republicans surveyed in the poll, 25% said a guilty verdict would make them more likely to vote for the former president, while 10% said it would make them less likely to vote for him. Only 7% of Democrats said a guilty verdict would make them more likely to vote for Trump, and 27% said it would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

Among coveted independent voters, 15% said a guilty verdict would make them more likely to vote for Trump, and 11% said it would make them less likely.

In contrast, 76% of all voters said a not-guilty verdict wouldn’t affect their votes.

The best-case scenario for Trump is acquittal, viewed as an unlikely outcome that would require all 12 jurors to find him innocent. The most realistic path for the defense is a hung jury, in which at least one juror dissents.

Even if the jury returns a guilty verdict, the former president is expected to appeal. A conviction would not keep him from running for a second term.

“Article 1 of the Constitution sets out three requirements to be president. You have to be 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, and 14 years a resident within the U.S.,” Heritage Foundation legal scholar Hans von Spakovsky told the Washington Examiner. “Being a convicted felon is not a bar to being president.”

Trump cited the NPR/Marist poll on Thursday morning before heading into the courtroom. He pointed to his lead of 54% to 42% against President Joe Biden among independent voters.

“Trump’s strongest lead among independent voters,” Trump bragged before moving to attack independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Jr. is way down — way, way down,” Trump said, according to a pool report of the trial. He also called Kennedy “extremely liberal, by the way, extremely radical left. I think you know that, but he seems to be hurting Biden probably a little bit.”

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This week, the Kennedy campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that CNN colluded with the Biden and Trump campaigns to exclude him from the network’s June 27 debate in Atlanta, Georgia.

In a multicandidate matchup from the same poll, Kennedy pulled 8% compared to Trump’s 44% support, with Biden at 40%, Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3%, and independent Cornel West at 2%. Another 3% said they were undecided.

Kaelan Deese and Haisten Willis contributed to this story.