Nearly 1 in 5 Republicans in three key battleground states say they believe former President Trump is guilty in the New York state hush-money criminal case that ended in a felony conviction last week, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Trump was convicted of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a scheme to hide potentially damaging information from the American public ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
The Florida Atlantic University PolCom Lab/Mainstreet Research poll was conducted shortly after the 12-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict last Thursday. — Pollsters questioned 2,068 adults in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Do you think Trump is guilty?“Regardless of what a New York jury decided.”
Overall, 48% of respondents said Trump is guilty, 38% said he is innocent and 14% said they didn’t know.
Democrats are most likely to believe Trump is guilty (79%), but the survey also shows Republicans are divided, with 18% saying they think Trump is guilty, two-thirds (66%) saying he is not guilty and 16% saying they don’t know.
Among independents surveyed, 50% said they believed Trump was guilty, 31% said they believed he was not guilty and 19% said they didn’t know.
The results are similar when broken down by 2020 voter turnout, with 81% of 2020 Biden voters saying they believe Trump is guilty, and 15% of 2020 Trump voters saying the same.
Among those who said they would vote for Trump over Biden in 2024 if it came to a two-way choice, 10% said they believed Trump was guilty, while 74% said they believed Trump was innocent and 16% said they didn’t know.
Third party voters and undecided voters in three battleground states are also more likely to believe Trump is guilty.
Among respondents who said they would vote for “another candidate” rather than both candidates if Trump faced a head-to-head challenger in the 2024 presidential election, 52% said they thought Trump was guilty, compared with 19% who thought he was not guilty and 30% who said they didn’t know.
Among those who remain undecided in the 2024 head-to-head contest, 49% said they believe Trump is guilty, 17% said he is not guilty and 34% said they don’t know.
In the 2024 presidential election, a three-way battle is expected, including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but 37% of Kennedy supporters surveyed said they believe Trump is guilty, compared with 27% who did not, and 36% who were unsure.
The Hill/Decision Desk average of national polls shows Trump ahead of Biden by one point, 45.1 percent to 44.1 percent, within the margin of error of most polls.
The poll was conducted May 30-31, 2024, and had an overall margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
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