Jury To Begin Deliberations In Trump Hush Money Trial

Guilty or not guilty, Trump verdict won’t sway most voters, poll shows

UPDATE: A jury convicted Donald Trump on all 34 counts in his hush money trial in New York on May 30. Judge Juan Merchan set Trump’s sentencing for July 11, days before the Republican National Convention and shortly after the first Biden-Trump presidential debate of the 2024 election. Find the latest updates here.


As a jury deliberates on former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money charges in New York, 2 in 3 registered U.S. voters say a guilty verdict would have no effect on whom they plan to vote for in the presidential election, according to a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

Overall, 67 percent of voters said a conviction would make no difference for them in November, including 74 percent of independents. That’s a significantly higher number than the percentage of either Republicans or Democrats who said it wouldn’t change their vote.

In fact, 25 percent of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty by a jury, while 27 percent of Democrats said they would be less likely to vote for him – a split that underscores hardened partisan perspectives on candidate Trump.

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Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

To Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, if Trump “ends up getting found guilty, I think it makes it much less likely for him to win. But [Democrats] don’t need it in order to win.”

Republican strategist Douglas Heye said he thought a guilty verdict would “give a subset of voters something to think about, but not a ton of voters.”

Narrow slivers of Republicans – 10 percent – and independent voters – 11 percent – said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he is found guilty.

The latest poll also asked voters whether Trump being acquitted would affect their vote preference. A large majority – 76 percent – seemed to see a not-guilty verdict as keeping the status quo, saying that outcome would make no difference to them on Election Day.

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Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

Because the Manhattan court proceedings are not televised, Trump’s trial has gone largely unnoticed by many Americans, said Heye, who noted he has traveled extensively around the country in recent weeks.

“No one is talking about the trial except people in Washington, D.C. and New York City,” he said. “I’m not surprised anymore.”

Survey data supports that claim. Last month, 55 percent of Americans said they were paying little to no attention to Trump’s hush money trial, according to a May 1 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

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Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

The lack of public interest in Trump’s latest trial is indisputable, Rosenberg said, adding that it highlights how disengaged people remain at this point in the election cycle. “People don’t know the economy is growing, not shrinking. Why do we think they’re going to know about Trump’s trials?”

But that is likely to change as Election Day looms closer, he said.

“As the American people check in and go through the process of going from being disinterested to becoming a voter, the information they gain is far more likely to benefit [Democrats] than Republicans,” Rosenberg said.

Biden vs. Trump (and the 3rd party factor)

If the election were held today, 50 percent of national registered voters said they would vote for President Joe Biden, according to this latest poll. Meanwhile, 48 percent said they would vote to reelect former president Donald Trump.

This head-to-head has remained essentially unchanged for the last two months, and is in line with what many national polls have shown – “a close, competitive election,” Rosenberg said.

To Heye, it’s significant that despite Trump being embroiled in scandal for years, the public’s overall enthusiasm for the former president is statistically tied with that for Biden – a reminder, he said, that both candidates are deeply unpopular. In this latest poll, Biden’s approval rating remains at 41 percent among Americans overall, while his disapproval rating is stuck at 54 percent.

“That ought to send an alarm bell to Democrats more than Republicans,” Heye said.

“I think the notion that Trump has a lead is not consistent with the data in front of us,” Rosenberg said. A headline-grabbing New York Times/Siena poll in mid-May found Trump had an advantage in a handful of battleground states, such as Arizona and Michigan. More recently, Trump received support from former Republican rival Nikki Haley, who has continued to sap primary votes from the presumptive nominee despite leaving the race in March. Haley’s supporters are seen as a key group to win over, and the Biden campaign has been trying.

Six months ahead of the 2024 presidential election, voters still have a lot of time to decide who should lead the country. About one in four Americans said in this poll that they were not following this election closely, if at all. Rosenberg, who also called the current race a “true toss-up right now,” said that once voters begin to examine the records of both presumptive nominees, they will see that Biden “has been a good president” and that “the country is better off.”

At the same time, he predicted, voters will find Trump’s “performance on the stump is far more erratic and disturbing” than in 2016 or 2020, and that “his agenda is far more extreme and dangerous.”

When voters were asked to choose from a wider field of candidates, this poll found Trump had a small advantage: 44 percent of voters said they would vote for Trump, 40 percent said they would vote for Biden and 8 percent would vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy – who, in the days since this latest poll was conducted, was rejected by Libertarians for their party nomination and also said he opposed the removal of Confederate monuments – received support from 17 percent of independent voters.

“He’s not a strong candidate, and he’s not going to be a major public presence in the election,” Rosenberg said, adding that beyond his famous last name, the candidate and his agenda do not appeal to most Democrats. However, “fringe candidates can impact the election,” he said.

Eight in 10 national registered voters said they will be “definitely voting” in November, though that enthusiasm was less likely among younger voters. Sixty-nine percent of Gen Z and millennials said they will vote without fail, compared to 93 percent of the Silent Generation. In this poll, those younger voters (who seemed in this poll less sure as a generation that they would vote compared to others) favored Biden to Trump in a head-to-head match (52 percent to 46 percent), while the oldest voters preferred Trump to Biden (53 percent to 47 percent).

A growing share of national registered voters say they know who they will vote for in the 2024 presidential election and nothing will change their minds. In this latest poll, 66 percent of national registered voters say they already know which candidate has their vote, up 6 percentage points since April. In another show of the youth enthusiasm gap, Gen Z and millennial registered voters were the most likely to be still weighing their options.

Public attitudes about the war in Gaza

The percentage of Americans who think the U.S. provides too much military aid to Israel (35 percent) has risen 4 percentage points since November, according to this latest poll, which was conducted days before a deadly Israeli strike on a civilian camp in the Gazan city of Rafah.

At the same time, a growing number of Americans feel the U.S. is being overly generous to Palestinians. Twenty-nine percent think the country is doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, up from 22 percent last November. Meanwhile, the percentage who feel the U.S. should do more on humanitarian aid is shrinking, dropping from 40 percent to 29 percent in the last six months.

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Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

And yet, overall, more than a third of Americans (36 percent) said the U.S. is offering the right amount of humanitarian relief, according to this latest poll.

When given a range of options about what the U.S. role should be in the war, roughly half of Americans (48 percent) said the U.S. should support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas while also using its influence to encourage Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. To Mary McCord, a former Justice Department acting assistant attorney general for national security, the data suggests there may be more consensus around U.S. policy on the current Israel-Gaza war than some might think.

“Polarization is driven at the margins by people who are more vocal and whose positions get more publicity,” said McCord, a professor of law at Georgetown University. “They drive the extremes. That creates an impression that’s absorbed by the population that we’re farther apart than the bulk of the population is.”

Though polls are always a snapshot in time – a survey taken this week, for instance, in the aftermath of the widely condemned Rafah blast, could have shown different results – the percentage of Americans who say they support Israel defending itself far outflanks the 25 percent of Americans who say the U.S. should withdraw all support for Israel until a cease-fire is secured in Gaza (something 38 percent of Gen Z and millennials supported). It is also substantially more than 23 percent of Americans who say the U.S. should fully support Israel’s military actions against Hamas (an idea supported by 32 percent of the Silent Generation).

The PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a survey on May 21 through May 23 that polled 1,261 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points, 1,122 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points and 907 registered voters who definitely plan to vote in November’s general election with a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.