Former President Donald Trump‘s guilty verdict could represent a blow to his presidential campaign.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment allegedly made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged the payment was meant to prevent her from speaking publicly about her claims of having an affair with the former president.
On Thursday, a jury handed down a guilty verdict on all 34 felony counts following the trial, which lasted more than a month throughout April and May, while several states held their primary nominating contests.
“This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt,” Trump said outside the courtroom following the verdict.
Trump, who has long denounced the prosecution as a “witch hunt,” has said he is innocent of all charges in this case and other criminal and civil cases he is facing.
Sentencing is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention.
Tammy Vigil, a senior associate dean at Boston University’s College of Communication, told Newsweek that the verdict will complicate his campaign.
“This might result in increased motivation to turn out to make sure the nation does not elect a convicted felon to the presidency,” she said.
Still, he is likely to continue to “protest his innocence” and may even fundraise off of the verdict, she said. His most ardent supporters are likely to continue supporting him, regardless of the verdict.
Grant Davis Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, said that undecided voters may have “pause” before voting for Trump due to the guilty verdict while they weigh other factors and concerns.
He said that the effect may be marginal, limited to only true undecided voters, but that that could still matter due to the close nature of the election.
The guilty verdict could have negative consequences for his presidential campaign, according to some polls.
Trump has held a narrow, yet consistent, polling lead over President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, for months. But the verdict may convince some voters currently backing Trump to instead vote for Biden in November, according to polls.
A Marquette Law School poll, conducted among 902 registered voters nationwide from May 6 to 15, found that a significant number of voters would abandon Trump in the case of a guilty verdict.
The poll found that in a scenario where Trump was found guilty, 43 percent of respondents backed Biden, while 39 per cent said they would vote for Trump. But when asked who they would vote for if Trump were found not guilty, 44 percent said they would vote for Trump, and 38 percent said they would vote for Biden.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
Meanwhile, an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted from April 25 to 30 found that 1 in 5 Trump supporters would reconsider or withdraw their support for Trump in the case of a guilty verdict. The sample size of the subgroup of Trump supporters was 937 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4.
Notably, he still faces three other criminal trials. Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has led two investigations, one of which focuses on alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the other deals with classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
Meanwhile, Trump is also expected to eventually face trial in Fulton County District Attorney’s investigation into alleged attempts at election interference in Georgia, a swing state that backed Biden in 2020.
However, it remains unclear whether any of these trials will be held before the presidential election in November, as all have faced delays in recent months. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges in each of those cases.
