Four in 10 U.S. voters believe former President Trump should receive prison time for his hush money conviction, but this sentiment varies along party lines. New poll finds.
An Emerson College poll released Thursday found that 40% of voters think Trump should receive prison time, 25% say he should be fined and 15% say he should be put on probation. Twenty% said they didn’t know.
On May 30, Trump was convicted in New York of all 34 charges of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony. The charges were related to the repayment of $130,000 to Trump’s former fixer and former lawyer, Michael Cohen, in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels over an alleged affair.
The sentencing is scheduled for July 11, but the prison sentence would be a rare punishment for a first-time offender convicted of Trump’s crimes in New York state.
The poll found that more than half of Democrats surveyed, 67%, said Trump should receive prison time, while 46% of Republicans thought he should receive a fine. Independents were evenly split, with 42% of Republicans saying Trump should receive prison time, 22% preferring a fine and 14% preferring probation.
Polls show Trump’s popularity remains strong even in the wake of his felony conviction.
The former president’s approval rating remained the same as in the April poll at 46 percent, but his lead over President Biden has narrowed, from three points to one point in the latest poll.
A majority, 40 percent, said a conviction of Trump would not affect their decision to vote this November, while a third said it would make them less likely to support Trump and 27 percent said it would make them more likely to support him.
The poll was conducted June 4-5 among 1,000 registered voters and has a confidence interval (similar to a margin of error) of 3 percentage points.
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