Half of adults believe Trump is guilty in hush money case, plurality say conviction won’t affect their vote: poll
Exactly half of US adults believe that former President Donald Trump is guilty of wrongdoing in the Manhattan hush money case against him, a recent poll found.
That includes 86% of Democrats, 54% of Independents, and 14% of Republicans who believe he will be found guilty of doling out payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and others to prevent negative stories about him from appearing in the press, according to a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll.
On the other hand, 24% of total respondents believe he is not guilty and 25% were unsure.
Still, 44% of respondents conveyed that a hypothetical conviction of Trump in that case would not affect their vote, 13% said that it would make them more likely to back him, and 9% didn’t know.
Broken down along party lines, 36% of Independents said a conviction would make them less likely to back Trump, as did 53% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans.
Trump had been slated to head to trial over his alleged falsification of business documents to conceal hush money payments on March 25, but that got pushed by a month after the recent disclosure of roughly 100,000 pages of material.
The case revolves around alleged payments to Daniels, model Karen McDougal, and Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin.
Prosecutors allege that Trump or his business shelled out hush money payments in a bid to kill negative stories about him. With respect to Daniels and McDougal, prosecutors allege the payments were intended to help him in the 2016 election, and therefore, violated campaign finance laws.
The former president has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in the hush money case being led by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump, 77, faces a total of 88 criminal counts across four cases.
One of the legal defenses Trump has mounted against that onslaught of charges is the notion that he enjoys presidential immunity. The Supreme Court is mulling the merits of that claim for the 2020 election subversion case.
An overwhelming majority of voters — 70% — rejected that legal defense, while 11% believe presidents do enjoy total immunity and 18% weren’t sure.
Even 48% of Republicans believe that presidents aren’t immune from criminal prosecution, while 92% of Democrats and 75% of Independents concurred, per the poll.
Only 24% of Republicans, 3% of Democrats, and 8% of Independents agreed with the concept of presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court has set April 25 to hold oral arguments in the presidential immunity case.
Only 24% of respondents indicated that they trust the Supreme Court to properly handle the immunity question, including 38% of Republicans, 14% of Democrats, and 24% of Independents.
Forty-six percent of total adults sampled, 26% of Republicans, 69% of Democrats, and 47% of Independents said they don’t trust the high court on that matter. Twenty-nine percent of total adults were unsure.
When asked whether Trump should stand trial in his 2020 election subversion case before the Nov. 5 election, 59% believe he should, according to the poll.
The Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll was conducted between March 8-10 among 1,024 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
