Will a conviction of Trump by that New York jury hurt his electoral chances?
That’s the big political question, right now. No one knows the answer. We’ve never had a convicted felon run for president (at least not representing a major party), and the felony for which Trump might be convicted doesn’t comport with our ordinary understanding of felonies, in any case.
The Washington Post takes a stab at the question in this article. It concludes that the Trump trial is not doing much to sway “swing voters.” The Post’s reporting appears to be anecdotal, rather than poll-based. In addition, Trump has yet to be convicted.
Nonetheless, speaking as a swing voter (“swinging” between Trump and none-of-the-above), I think the Post is right. I doubt the New York trial, even if it results in a conviction, will appreciable sway.
The problem for those who are counting on a felony conviction in New York to derail Trump is that, to fair-minded people, the conviction would not stand for the proposition that Trump actually committed a genuine felony. Instead, it would stand only for the proposition that a bunch of Trump-hating Democrats (the prosecutor, who campaigned on the promise to prosecute Trump, and the jury drawn from the electorate that received this promise) decided, with a big assist from a Trump-hating judge, that Trump committed a felony that doesn’t seem like a felony.
I’m not inclined to let my vote be influenced by the opinions and prejudices of Trump-hating New Yorkers. I doubt that voters in states like Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona are so inclined, either.
The Post’s reporting suggests they are not. One undecided voter, a woman who’s down on Trump because of the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion, said “[Trump’s] a man. What he did in his marriage is between him and his wife.” Others pointed out that the felony charges against the former president are “a stretch.”
Despite its heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence, and probably because of it, the Post’s article is a fun read. It’s always heartening to see common sense asserted in the heartland, and I especially enjoyed the Post’s “fact-checking” of Joe and Jane Public.
For example:
18-year-old Lacey Roznowski said she hadn’t seen anything about the trial on TikTok. But she did remember hearing the false claim — circulated in an apparently satirical video that some have taken at face value — that Biden was one of the first presidents to fail a random test of his ability to recite the alphabet. In fact, there is no “ABC test” for presidents and no evidence of Biden taking one.
Thanks for debunking that one.
Also:
Curtis Barancik [a Trump supporter] said he heard 86 percent of jurors in Trump’s trial are “against” him. (Manhattan voters broke more than 80 percent for Biden in 2020; the judge and attorneys for the prosecution and defense screened jurors for their ability to set aside their political beliefs).
As if this kind of screening can effectively eliminate jurors who want to convict Trump. It can’t.
More from Mr. Barancik:
I believe our news is very biased,” he said as old cars roared by, occasionally drowning him out. “Every night all you hear is Trump bashing. Trump did this, Trump did that, blah blah blah.”
The Post offers no retort to this obviously true statement.
“Blah, blah, blah” is a good summation of the New York trial, in my view. There’s a reason why anti-Trump legal analysists did not want this Rube Goldberg machine of a case to be the first Trump prosecution to proceed. It’s much ado about very little and New York city jurors have no credibility with the voters who matter in this election.