Polls show only incremental movement in his campaign against President Biden. But that could be enough to change a close race that depends on swing voters.
How much will Donald Trump’s conviction in the New York hush money case matter come November?
The obvious answer is that nobody knows. Still, I suspect the verdict will matter, just not in ways that are easy or even possible to predict.
A lot of the instant reaction revolves around polls. We talk about polls not because they are so important but because we lack much else to go on. Like the proverbial drunk who looks under the streetlamp for his lost keys because the light is much better there, we look at polls because they at least illuminate something, even if it’s not very much.
The smattering of surveys conducted since Thursday’s verdict show that slightly more than half of Americans think the jury was correct. A CBS poll found that the verdict changed very few minds, though a small number had more negative views of Trump. None of that is surprising given that attitudes about the trial have tracked attitudes about Trump.
Now, if the judge throws Trump in jail for an extended term — which seems both unlikely and indefensible, given the nature of the crime — it’s possible that attitudes will swing more in Trump’s favor. But if it’s just for a day, attitudes probably won’t change so much as intensify.
If the opinions indicated by the latest polling hold constant for the roughly 150 days to Nov.
