Global Courant
Not much unites the country when it comes to Donald Trump. And the public’s response to the former president’s two landmark indictments has largely been along the polarized partisan lines we’d expect. But in one area there is something much closer to agreement.
That’s according to a new poll commissioned by POLITICO Magazine and conducted by IpsosDo most Americans — including a large number of Republicans, whom the former president is currently courting ahead of his 2024 campaign — believe that the trial in the pending federal case against Trump for mishandling classified documents ahead of the GOP primaries and should take place well before the general election .
There are significant hurdles to such a speedy process; this is an unprecedented set of circumstances within the legal system, with Trump not only being a former president, but also the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. But the results, both remarkable and surprising, could prompt prosecutors and the presiding judge to act more quickly.
POLITICO Magazine commissioned this poll because, despite some initial polls shortly after the federal impeachment of Trump, we thought we could dig deeper into public sentiment. How much do people really understand the charges Trump faces and believe he is guilty? What kind of punishment do they think will fit the crimes if he is convicted? And, of course, what impact could all this have on Trump’s presidential candidacy?
The poll was conducted from June 27 to June 28, about three weeks after Trump’s federal indictment and nearly three months after Trump was indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The poll had a sample of 1,005 adults age 18 or older who were interviewed online; it has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for all respondents.
Right now, about half of the country believes Trump committed the crimes accused against him.
Forty-nine percent of respondents — including 25 percent of Republicans — said they believe Trump is guilty of the ongoing federal prosecution alleging he deliberately withheld sensitive government documents after his term in office and obstructed a subsequent federal investigation. A nearly identical 48 percent of respondents — including 24 percent of Republicans — believe Trump is guilty of the Manhattan DA’s pending prosecution alleging that Trump falsified business records in connection with a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual relationship between the two.
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However, there was more consensus about the timing.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (62 percent) said the trial in the pending federal prosecution should take place before the presidential election in November — a figure that includes nearly half of Republican respondents (46 percent). A smaller number, but a still solid majority, said the process should take place before the Republican primary begins early next year (57 percent of all respondents, including 42 percent of Republican respondents).
The findings could strengthen federal prosecutors’ position have pushed for a trial date as early as December. That is expected of Trump try dragging out the procedure as long as possible, especially since he probably could stop the prosecution if reelected. But the federal statute governing the determination of trial dates requires judges to consider not only the best interests of the accused, but also “the interest of the public” also.
What should happen to Trump if he is convicted? Forty-three percent said he should go to jail, but most were willing to spare him jail time. Nearly a quarter of respondents said Trump should not be punished at all (22 percent), while 18 percent said he should face probation and another 17 percent said he should only receive a monetary fine.
The results were roughly similar when respondents were asked what the punishment should be if Trump is convicted in Manhattan. Most respondents said Trump shouldn’t go to jail and instead should face no jail time, probation, or just a monetary fine (21 percent, 17 percent, and 22 percent, respectively).
In both cases there was a clear partisan breakdown. Before the DOJ case, 73 percent of Democrats thought Trump should go to jail if convicted, compared to 16 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents. For the Manhattan DA’s case, 65 percent of Democrats supported jail time, compared to 14 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents.
The results also complicate the post-indictment narrative that the allegations increased Trump’s chances of winning his party’s presidential nomination. It’s true that he’s gained support in the polls since the indictments, but our research shows they haven’t fundamentally changed Republicans’ views of his campaign. While 21 percent of GOP respondents said the federal indictment for mishandling classified documents made them more likely to support Trump, 23 percent said it made them less likely; fully 50 percent said it had no impact and 6 percent said they didn’t know. The results were similar for the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment over the hush money payment.
With the wider public, a conviction in either case would be detrimental to Trump’s electoral chances. An identical number — 41 percent of all respondents — said a conviction in the federal case or the Manhattan DA’s case would make them less likely to support the former president. Despite all the commentary about him being Teflon Don, it’s clear that some of his missteps could cost him.
The results also suggest that the numbers could get worse as Americans learn more about pending charges. About a third of respondents said they were not particularly familiar with the allegations in either case.
That number could decrease as media coverage continues, especially ahead of possible trials. There is currently a trial date in the Manhattan prosecutor’s case set to start on March 25, though it’s conceivable that in practice Trump could have locked in the nomination by then if the dynamics in the GOP primaries don’t change. So far, most of his detractors have struggled to articulate a message that stands out from Trump, while at the same time appealing to a voter base that has largely stuck with him despite his growing legal troubles.
The public’s preference for a relatively quick trial date in the federal prosecution against Trump could prove tricky. Many legal observers are sceptical that a trial is possible next year, especially given the complexity of a case involving classified documents and a defendant historically adept at editing aggressive delay strategies.
Indeed, according to the most recent statistics available, the median time of filing available in felony cases in the Southern District of Florida, where the federal case against Trump is pending, is is nine months. But that figure is almost certainly dragged down by the fact that the vast majority of federal criminal cases are resolved by plea of guilty and that very few, if any, trials in the district have created the kind of complexity that made the very first criminal prosecution against a former U.S. president, particularly with regard to classified information.
But if prosecutors and the presiding judge want to look at the law and satisfy the public interest, they can point to the results of this poll.
