Trump and Hunter Biden guilty verdicts effect on voter sentiment probed in new poll

A new national poll suggests that the guilty verdicts against former President Trump in his recent criminal trial may have little impact on his 2024 election rematch with President Biden.

And the survey, from Monmouth University, also indicates that more voters agree than disagree with Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in the first trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history.

But a majority questioned in the poll say the charges against the former president were politically motivated.

Nearly half say the same thing about the trial of Hunter Biden, the president’s sole surviving son, which ended Tuesday with the younger Biden’s conviction on three counts tied to his October 2018 purchase and possession of a revolver while using illegal drugs.

Trump was found guilty late last month of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments during the 2016 election that he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Prosecutors in the case argued that this amounted to illegally seeking to influence the 2016 election.

The Monmouth poll spotlights that the impact on the presidential election of the Trump verdicts is minimal, with both candidates continuing ‘to draw almost identical levels of support, although voter enthusiasm for this rematch has increased among both Republicans and Democrats.’ 

According to the survey, just over four in 10 registered voters say they’ll either definitely or probably vote for the Democratic incumbent and in a separate question, a nearly identical number say they’ll definitely or probably vote for his Republican predecessor in the White House.

Forty-nine percent of those surveyed said they definitely won’t vote for Biden, with an identical number saying the same thing about Trump. 

These results have not moved much since last fall in Monmouth national polling.

Trump for months has held a slight polling edge over Biden in most surveys in the crucial seven battleground states across the country that will likely decide the outcome of the presidential rematch. But Biden enjoys a fundraising advantage, and the upper hand when it comes to ground game operations in the key states.

Nearly half — 47% — of those questioned in the Monmouth survey said they agree with the jury’s guilty verdicts in Trump’s trial, with 34% disagreeing. 

That’s mostly in-line with other national surveys conducted since the end of the trial that indicated about half of those questioned approving of the verdicts, but that opinions of the former president remained stable.

Fifty-seven percent of those questioned in the Monmouth poll said that they thought the decision to bring Trump to trial was politically motivated. By comparison, only 48% thought that the charges against Hunter Biden were motivated by politics.

‘Many Americans are skeptical about these high-profile trials and there is a clear partisan gap depending on which defendant we are talking about. Still, the results indicate Republicans have a higher level of distrust in our judicial process than Democrats do,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said.

The poll was conducted June 6-10, before Tuesday’s conviction of Hunter Biden, with 1,106 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.