What the polls say about Trump's hush money trial

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Jury selection begins Monday in Donald Trump's New York hush money case, the first of the former president's four criminal trials. The charges are related to an alleged cover-up of a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. But the polls suggest that a guilty verdict would be unlikely to have a big influence come November.

After a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records last March, a YouGov poll found that a majority — 52 percent — of Americans "strongly" or "somewhat" supported the indictment, compared with 32 percent who opposed it.

In the months since, public opinion of the case has largely held steady, with around half of Americans believing that the former president is guilty of the charges. According to the latest YouGov/Economist poll, 48 percent of adults agreed that Trump falsified business records — though opinions were, unsurprisingly, split along partisan lines. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats believed Trump was guilty, but just 35 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans did.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday asked likely voters what they thought the verdict in the hush money trial should be, to which 46 percent said Trump should be found guilty and 37 percent said he should be found not guilty. Again, those results fell generally along party lines.

Even if the Manhattan trial were to result in a conviction, many voters have indicated that it won't impact how they'll vote in November. A Quinnipiac University poll from March found that 55 percent of registered voters said a conviction in this case would make "no difference" in how they voted in the presidential race. Only 29 percent said they'd be less likely to support Trump — and that figure is composed in no small part of people who weren't likely to vote for him anyway. Forty-nine percent of Democrats said the conviction would make them less likely to cast a ballot for Trump.

True, an Ipsos/Politico Magazine poll from March suggested that a conviction could hurt Trump's chances with independents, 36 percent of whom said they would be less likely to support Trump if he was found guilty. But that was still 8 percentage points lower than the share of independents who said a conviction wouldn't change anything about their voting intentions.

And among Republicans, just 9 percent said a conviction in the Manhattan trial would make them less likely to support Trump, while 34 percent said it'd make them more likely to support his presidential bid. This isn't particularly surprising — Trump supporters have shown that they'll stick with him no matter what, and most skeptics who might be willing to turn on Trump have probably already done so.

After all, the former president has been indicted three other times since last April, in cases that Americans generally view as more serious than the New York one. According to an Ipsos/Reuters poll released Wednesday, 65 percent of registered voters found the hush-money-related charges "very" or "somewhat" serious, trailing the other three cases by 5 to 10 points. And in a YouGov poll from January, 56 percent of respondents ranked the hush money case as the least important of the four indictments. That majority held across nearly all demographic groups surveyed, including party identification.

Another downstream effect of Trump's multiple indictments is that pollsters are now asking questions about Trump's legal troubles collectively, rather than asking about each individual case. I took a look back at all the surveys with questions about Trump's criminal cases since Jan. 1 and found that only a handful asked specifically about the alleged hush money cover-up.

And pollsters aren't the only ones lumping the different cases against Trump together: The Ipsos/Politico poll found that a near-identical proportion of Americans (around half) believe Trump is guilty in all four cases. And with beliefs in Trump's guilt largely falling in line with partisanship, opinions on the indictments appear to be little more than a reflection of how voters feel about Trump at large.

To wit: Americans are also evenly split on whether the charges against Trump are fair or politically motivated "witch hunts," as he has repeatedly claimed. An AtlasIntel poll from February found that 49 percent of registered voters believed the charges against Trump were politically motivated, while 46 percent said the proceedings were out of "genuine interest in applying the law." Looking at the crosstabs by party, more independents said the cases were a result of political persecution rather than out of legitimate legal concern.

What voters do seem to agree on, though, is that they want Trump's legal issues to be wrapped up before November. Sixty-three percent of adults in a March YouGov/Yahoo News poll said it was important for voters to get a verdict in the trials before the general election, including 38 percent of Republicans. And no matter their desired outcome, voters are doubtful that Trump will spend any time behind bars; a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll from March found that 60 percent of respondents believed Trump would never serve jail time for any crime, while just 11 percent believed he would (29 percent were unsure).

Polling on the New York trial — and the other three indictments — reflects a clean split between the political parties and not much else. A guilty verdict might hurt Trump's performance among independents, but severe political polarization for and against the former president means that a seismic shift in voting patterns is unlikely.

What to watch in Trump’s hush money trial

Former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal hush money trial, set to begin Monday, brings with it a long list of charges, witnesses, potential penalties, appeals and attorneys.

Here’s everything you need to know.

Case overview

The charges stem from reimbursements made to Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for hush money payments he made before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels to stop her from speaking publicly about her alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. The former president has pleaded not guilty and denied the affair with Daniels.

While it’s known as the “hush money” trial, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has said this case is about election interference, alleging the $130,000 payment was part of a wider scheme enacted by Trump and his allies from 2015 to 2017 to keep damaging information from voters.

Prosecutors allege that once the “Access Hollywood” tape – wherein Trump speaks graphically about his proclivity to grope women – became public, the campaign was scrambling to quash Daniels’ allegation out of concern of how it would play with female voters. Prosecutors will have to prove that Trump is guilty of falsifying business records with the intent to hide that $130,000 payment.

Trump is required to attend the trial unless he receives a waiver from Judge Juan Merchan.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office officially launched its investigation into the alleged hush money schemes under the previous DA, Cy Vance, in August 2018, the same month Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the Daniels payments. Under Vance, prosecutors shifted their investigation to focus on the Trump Organization’s finances and away from the repayment scheme.

Bragg, who took office in January 2022, has accused Trump of leaning on his political power to avoid criminal responsibility for years and campaigned on a promise to prosecute the former president. A grand jury was eventually green-lit to hear the hush money case in December 2022, leading to the historic indictment of the former president just over a year ago.

What exactly is Trump accused of doing?

Cohen said he paid Daniels at Trump’s request shortly before the 2016 election to keep her quiet. Cohen paid Daniels the $130,000 through a shell corporation he set up and funded at a Manhattan bank. Cohen plead guilty in 2018 to violating federal campaign finance laws and implicated Trump directly in the scheme.

The falsified business records include invoices created by Cohen, entries for the payments recorded on Trump books, and checks that were mostly signed by Trump to Cohen. Prosecutors allege they falsely say the payments were for legal expenses pursuant to a retainer agreement, but prosecutors allege there never was a retainer agreement.

The charges

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all related to the cover-up of hush money payments to Daniels.

Each count represents a separate instance of the alleged misconduct, pointing to different business records associated with a series of repayments to Cohen (ledger entries, checks, stubs, invoices, etc.) that were allegedly falsified to conceal his criminal conduct.

The potential penalties

The maximum penalty for each count is four years in state prison, but the judge has discretion over how long any sentence should be and whether to allow any sentences to be served consecutively. He could also sentence Trump to probation.

New York caps sentencing for this type of felony at 20 years. A president has no authority to pardon state crimes.

Trial timeline

Jury selection is expected to take one to two weeks, with the entire trial expected to last six to eight weeks.

Pending appeals

Trump’s attorneys went to a New York appeals court three times this past week to try to pause the trial while the court heard challenges on several issues. All of the requests for stays were swiftly rejected, though Trump’s lawyers will still be able to continue to litigate their appeals on several issues – including the gag order and recusing the judge – even if the trial is not paused.

Gag order

Earlier this month, Merchan expanded his gag order, banning Trump from attacking witnesses and jurors, to include family members of the court and family members of the Manhattan district attorney.

Merchan warned that Trump’s rhetoric threatens to instill fear in those who might be involved in the proceedings for their loved ones. Trump is still allowed to comment on Bragg and Merchan, who he has since accused of taking away his First Amendment rights.

An appeal on the gag order is still pending.

Jury selection

Court officials expect that about 100 new prospective jurors from Manhattan at a time will be brought into Merchan’s downtown Manhattan courtroom to be vetted to ultimately sit on a 12-person jury with six alternates.

The potential jurors will be asked to fill out a questionnaire giving information on where in the city they live, where they get their news, their feelings about the former president, whether they’ve ever attended a rally for the former president or had any affiliations with groups like the Proud Boys or with the QAnon movement.

Notably, they won’t be asked what political party they belong to or how they’ve voted in the past. Merchan said he will not ask jurors their thoughts on the 2020 election outcome.

But the judge plans to ask whether anyone feels they could not be fair or impartial or otherwise serve in the case and then excuse those who raise their hands without inquiring further.

In a letter Friday afternoon, Trump’s attorneys said that approach is “inadequate because the plan would not create a sufficient record for the purpose of any necessary appellate review, or a venue-change motion.” Instead, they asked the judge to distinguish between jurors who said they can’t be fair and those who are otherwise unable to serve.

The jury will remain anonymous to the public to avoid “exposing them to an atmosphere of intimidation” and Merchan warned Trump in a gag order that he can’t make public comments or direct anyone else to make public comments about jurors involved in the proceedings.

Witnesses

Other witnesses will include bankers and Trump Organization officials who handled the payments, lawyers involved in the transaction, as well as other people who worked on Trump’s campaign, the people said.

Cohen, Daniels, Trump’s longtime friend and former chief executive of American Media David Pecker, and Trump’s former campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks are among the high-profile witnesses who are expected to be called by prosecutors, according to people familiar with the case.

Attorneys

Manhattan prosecutors
- Alvin Bragg

- Matthew Colangelo

- Christopher Conroy

- Joshua Steinglass

- Susan Hoffinger

- Becky Mangold

Trump criminal attorneys

- Todd Blanche

- Emil Bove

- Susan Necheles

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