WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records in New York is one of his first. No former president has ever been tried, let alone found guilty, of a previous crime.
But Trump’s new status as a convicted felon may not affect his chances of winning the 2024 presidential election.
That, will also be the first strange history: presidential candidate convicted of felonies, but little ill if there is political damage in the process.
But the sensationalism of the allegations, which began with money payments made to adult film actresses, many voters would have reacted to the Manhattan jury’s decision with a shrug.
That belief won’t stop him from staying in the race until Election Day. If he wins, he has a good chance of avoiding serious punishment while he’s in the White House.
It will not be easy to play the conviction in 34 felony counts as a victory, but there are many ways Trump can reduce the consequences.
He will continue to claim that the allegations are flimsy and that the process was hijacked against him.
If the verdict is appealed, as expected, that will allow people to argue – correctly – that the conviction is not final when it is challenged. Incidentally, it will also keep people out of jail, at least for a while.
Why am I saying that a wrongful verdict will not hurt Trump’s election prospects? Because it’s the smartest political polls, Republicans and Democrats, say.
Democratic strategist Mark Mellman said that belief was “unlikely to play a significant role” in the election. “It is possible that the polls will be terrible and then return to the board. And there may be no flutter.
Republican pollster Whit Ayres said the impact of the verdict would be “negligible”.
In an ABC News/IPSOS poll last month, only 16% of current Trump voters said they would “reconsider” supporting him if convicted in the New York case. Only 4% said they would stop supporting him. But voters are often poor predictors of their own reactions, the poll said.
Many Democrats told a poll in 1998 that they thought President Bill Clinton should resign if he was accused of lying about having sex with a White House intern, Mellman said. But when the Republican-led House of Representatives actually impeached Clinton, her popularity soared.
Trump voters have proven fiercely loyal to their preferred candidate, convicted of a crime or not.
A month before the 2016 presidential election, when a video was released in which Trump bragged about kissing women without asking and holding her “by the pussy”, his poll numbers dropped by just one percentage point and quickly recovered.
“We’ve seen, over eight years, a series of events that have caused people to say, ‘Of course this time, Trump will lose support.’ But they never did,” Ayres said.
Trump himself has marveled at the phenomenon. “I can stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and not lose voters, OK?” said in 2016. “It’s, like, incredible.”
The presumptive Republican candidate has primed supporters to ignore the guilty verdict by relentlessly attacking the case against him as politically motivated.
“If I was trying to design a court case that Republicans would easily dismiss as a partisan witch hunt, I would design the New York case,” Ayres said, noting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is not only a Democrat, but a vocal Trump critic.
Trump has also shown that the constant repetition of even false claims can sway public opinion.
Case in point: his false claim, long unproven, that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. A year ago, a Monmouth University Poll found that 68% of Republicans said they believed President Joe Biden won the election through fraud. This year, after Trump spent months disputing the election at campaign rallies, that number jumped to 75%.
Despite the verdict in New York, Trump has scored an important victory in all four criminal cases: He and his lawyers, helped by a dose of luck, have succeeded in postponing any final reckoning until after Election Day.
Six months ago, any number of cases could threaten the presidential campaign: federal prosecution stemming from the invasion of supporters in the Capitol on January 6, 2021; federal case on charges of illegally stored highly classified documents; the Georgia election meddling case; and New York business fraud cases.
Trump has delayed the trial in three cases and is likely to appeal the verdict in the fourth. The appeals process will extend beyond the election.
The suspension will not waive the cost.
But if Trump wins the election, if he becomes president, he could order the Justice Department to drop the two federal cases. Some career Justice Department officials may refuse to carry out such orders, but the newly inaugurated president may be able to find — or choose — someone willing to do his bidding.
And according to legal precedent, state courts will suspend his lawsuits in New York and Georgia while he is in the White House. If he takes office in January and completes a full term, no case will be decided before 2029, when he will be 82 years old.
Being the first former president to be convicted of criminal charges is a dubious achievement, to be sure.
Equally unprecedented – and potentially more damaging to democracy – Trump has given future politicians a dangerous example: He has shown that criminal convictions should not stand in the way of success.
