As a jury in New York deliberates on former President Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal charges, a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll finds that two in three U.S. voters say a criminal conviction will not affect who they vote for in the presidential election.
Overall, 67% of voters said a conviction in the November election would have no impact on them, including 74% of independents — significantly higher than the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who said it would not change their voting behavior.
Indeed, 25% of Republicans said they would be more likely to vote for Trump if a jury convicted him, while 27% of Democrats said they would be less likely to vote for him — a split that highlights strengthening partisan views of the candidate.
Chart: Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg said that if Trump was convicted, “I think it would make it significantly less likely that he would win.” [Democrats] You don’t need that to win.”
Republican strategist Douglas Hay said a guilty verdict “will give some voters something to think about, but it won’t give most voters anything to think about.”
A small percentage of Republicans (10%) and independents (11%) said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he was convicted.
The latest poll also asked whether an acquittal of Trump would affect their voting preference, with a majority (76%) saying they would view acquittal as maintaining the status quo and that the outcome would have no impact on Election Day.
Chart: Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
Trump’s trial has received little attention from many Americans because the Manhattan court hearings are not televised, Hay said, noting that he has traveled extensively around the country in recent weeks.
“Nobody is talking about this trial except for people in Washington, D.C. and New York City,” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me anymore.”
Survey data backs up that assertion: Last month, 55% of Americans said they were paying little or no attention to President Trump’s hush money trial (according to a May 1 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll).
Chart: Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
Rosenberg said the lack of public interest in Trump’s latest trial is indisputable, adding that it highlights how disengaged the public is at this point in the election cycle. “People don’t know that the economy is growing, not shrinking. Why do we think they’re going to find out about President Trump’s trial?”
But that could change as Election Day approaches, he said.
“As Americans check in through the process of going from apathy to becoming a voter, the information they get is more likely to benefit their constituents. [Democrats] “More than Republicans,” Rosenberg said.
Biden vs. Trump (and the third party factor)
According to a new poll, 50% of voters nationwide said they would vote for President Joe Biden if the election were held today, while 48% said they would vote for the reelection of former President Donald Trump.
The head-to-head matchup has remained essentially unchanged over the past two months, consistent with what many national polls have shown as a “close election,” Rosenberg said.
For Hay, it’s important to note that despite Trump being embroiled in scandals for years, the public’s overall enthusiasm for the former president is statistically on par with that for Biden, a reminder 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 stagnating at 54 percent.
“This should be a wake-up call for Democrats more than Republicans,” Hay said.
“I think the idea that Trump is in the lead just doesn’t line up with the data that we have in front of us,” Rosenberg said. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted in mid-May found Trump ahead in battleground states such as Arizona and Michigan. More recently, Trump has received support from former Republican rival Nikki Haley, who has continued to steal votes from Biden in primaries despite dropping out of the race in March. Haley’s supporters are seen as an important group to woo, and the Biden campaign is trying to do just that.
With six months until the 2024 presidential election, voters still have plenty of time to decide who should lead the country. Polls show that about one in four Americans say they’re not paying much or any attention to the election. Rosenberg called the current race “pretty much even at this point” and said that once voters start looking at the records of both candidates, they’ll see that Biden “was a good president” and that “the country is better off.”
At the same time, he predicted, voters will find Trump’s “campaign performance far more volatile and unsettling than either 2016 or 2020” and “his policies far more extreme and dangerous.”
Asking voters to choose from a wide range of candidates, the poll found Trump with a slight lead: 44% of voters said they would vote for Trump, 40% for Biden and 8% for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Days after the latest poll was conducted, Kennedy, who was rejected by the Libertarian Party for its nomination and has also said he opposes the removal of Confederate monuments, received the support of 17% of independent voters.
“He’s not a strong candidate and he’s not going to have a big presence in the election,” Rosenberg said, adding that aside from a famous last name, the candidate and his policies don’t interest most Democrats. But “an extreme candidate can have an impact on the election,” he said.
While 8 in 10 registered voters nationwide say they will “definitely vote” in November, that enthusiasm was less strong among younger voters: 69% of Gen Z and millennials said they would definitely vote, compared with 93% of Silents. The poll also found that younger voters (who appear less sure about voting than other generations) favored Biden over Trump in a head-to-head matchup (52% vs. 46%), while the oldest voters favored Trump over Biden (53% vs. 47%).
A growing number of voters across the country say they know who they’ll vote for in the 2024 presidential election and won’t change their mind no matter what. In this latest poll, 66% of voters nationwide say they already know which candidate they’ll vote for, up six points from April. In another example of the gap in youth enthusiasm, the poll showed that Gen Z and millennial voters are the most likely to still be considering their options.
Public Attitudes Towards the Gaza War
The percentage of Americans who think the U.S. provides too much military aid to Israel (35%) has risen four points since November, according to the latest poll, conducted just days before the deadly Israeli attack on a civilian camp in the Gaza city of Rafah.
At the same time, more Americans believe the US has been too generous to the Palestinians: 29% of Americans believe the US is doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, up from 22% in November. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who believe the US should do more to provide humanitarian aid has fallen, dropping from 40% to 29% in the past six months.
Chart: Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
But overall, more than a third of Americans (36%) say the US is providing the right amount of humanitarian aid, according to this latest poll.
When presented with a range of options about the U.S. role in the war, about half of Americans (48%) said the U.S. should support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas while also using its influence to urge Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. For Mary McCord, a former deputy assistant secretary of justice for national security, the data suggests there may be more consensus about U.S. policy on the current Israel-Gaza war than some might think.
“Polarization is created on the fringes by people who are more vocal and whose positions are more widely known,” said McCord, the Georgetown University law professor. “They promote extreme views, which gives people the impression that they are more far-sighted than the majority of the population.”
While polls are always a snapshot in time—a poll taken immediately after the widely condemned Rafah explosion, for example, might have yielded different results—the percentage of Americans who say they support Israel’s self-defense far exceeds the 25% of Americans (supported by 38% of Gen Z and millennials) who say the U.S. should withdraw all aid to Israel until a ceasefire in Gaza is secured, and also significantly exceeds the 23% of Americans (supported by 32% of the Silent Generation) who say the U.S. should fully support Israel’s military action against Hamas.
The PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll surveyed 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 the November general election with a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.
