A plurality of Americans, 50%, think former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict on all 34 counts in the hush money trial is true, a new ABC News / Ipsos poll found, and almost as many, 49%, think it should end in 2024. presidential campaign over result.
Still, after the historic criminal trial that ended this week with the former president’s first conviction, Trump’s approval rating remains stable at 31%, according to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Trump was found guilty of 34 counts in court related to falsifying business records regarding payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her silent about the alleged relationship.
The former president has vowed to appeal, saying on Friday that “bad people” have levied the case – and the charges – against him.
Former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walks to speak to the press after his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on May 30, 2024.
Justin Lane/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Forty-seven percent of Americans say the allegations against Trump in this case are politically motivated, while 38% say they are not. At the same time, a small majority at 51%, think Trump intentionally did something illegal in this case. Twelve percent think Trump did something wrong but not on purpose, and 19% believe he did nothing wrong.
The proportion of Americans who say Trump should end his presidential campaign as a result of this verdict is 49%, which is similar to the findings of an April 2023 ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted shortly after a Manhattan grand jury handed down an indictment against him. this case. In an April 2023 poll, 48% thought he should suspend his campaign because of the allegations.
Biden’s approval rating also remained low and unchanged, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. His favorability rating is currently at 32% compared to 33% in an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in March 2024. The public reaction to Trump’s guilty verdict is along partisan lines. For example, 83% of Democrats think the ruling is right and 79% think they should end their campaign as a result, while only 16% of Republicans say the ruling is right and the same percentage say they should end their presidential bid.
Because Biden and Trump are generally viewed with disfavor, the election can be made for independent voters, or more specifically, those who dislike both candidates – sometimes referred to as double haters.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump
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A majority of Independents think Trump’s decision is correct, 52%, and the same number believe he should end his candidacy. For the second-time haters, the reaction was even clearer – 65% of Americans who saw Trump and Biden did not think that this week’s verdict was correct, with 67% believing that Trump should end his presidential campaign.
Forty-five percent of Independents and 51% of double-haters think the hush-money attempt is politically motivated, compared to 83% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats.
At the New York trial, Trump’s attacks were largely directed at the district attorney, judge and jury — all of whom he claimed were politically unfair to him. Trump also came after President Biden, claiming without evidence that he was behind the prosecution.
“If he can do this to me, he can do this to anybody,” Trump said during a news conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “These are bad people. These are, in most cases, I believe, sick people.” Biden, in his own remarks on Friday, denied that the rule of law was “reasserted” and that the statement questioning the legitimacy of the process was “dangerous.”
METHODOLOGY
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® May 31-June 1, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 781 US adults. The results have a margin of sampling error of 3.7 points, including design effects, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in opinion polls. The partisan division is 31-29-32 percent, Democrat-Republican-independent. See the poll’s results and details on the methodology here.
ABC News’ Dan Merkle and Ken Goldstein contributed to this report.
