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What impact is Trump’s trial having on polls? Unclear, disgusting
Some are still open to a U.S. president as a possible inmate. Not sure how the Secret Service protects a president in prison, but shame on us if we find out.
www.sfchronicle.com
What impact is Trump’s trial having on polls? Unclear or disgusting, depending on your politics
Some are still open to a U.S. president as a possible inmate. Not sure how the Secret Service protects a president in prison, but shame on us if we find out
By Jack Ohman May 15, 2024.
Jack Ohman/The Chronicle
In a linear political universe we’re not currently living in, Donald Trump, the first former president to face a criminal trial, would not be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if he were on trial for paying hush money to a porn star.
Alas, in this universe, Trump is leading in five swing states, more or less, in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
As former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen sets the table for 12 New York jurors while the former president fumes before him, often with his eyes closed, this dystopian courtroom drama plays out to a bitterly divided political audience. Half of American voters think it’s compelling and convincing, and the other half is either checked out, disbelieving or both.
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The Washington Post reported last week that a woman named Liz Crescibene has attended the Trump trial three times, and she doesn’t believe a word of it “because it’s a witch hunt.”
“How many trials can we have against Trump?” she asked plaintively. “They’re doing everything in their power because they want to get this man locked up. For what? I don’t know. I’m still waiting to see the evidence.”
Historically, “they” have these trials to present evidence and maintain the rule of law, and the evidence is pretty compelling, if you’re waiting to see it.
While Crescibene is probably a bit more enthusiastic than most in her Trump fealty, some voters are still open to the notion of a former president of the United States as a con and possible inmate. Not sure how the Secret Service protects a former president in a prison, but shame on this country if we find out.
According to the Times/Siena poll, Trump is ahead among registered voters in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. These leads are all mostly within margin of error.
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Political analyst Simon Rosenberg, the new Democratic polling handholder for nervous Democrats, called the Times/Siena poll an outlier.
“I realize the NYT headline of their story is Trump leads in five states, but that’s not what the data in these polls say. He leads in three — AZ, GA, NV — and three are essentially tied,” Rosenberg wrote on Monday. Rosenberg notes that Biden is now leading in most national polls, particularly with likely voters. He has clear leads in Pennsylvania, which one poll showed at a 10-point gap. He’s also been consistently up in Wisconsin and Michigan for weeks.
So when the New York Times or the Washington Post slops out another survey to the media pigpen, we all roll around in it for a day on CNN, even if the presentation or the methodology is, shall we say, foggy. The electronic media loves to continue the narrative that President Joe Biden may lose. Eyeballs, you know.
Asking why there’s a single Republican who would continue to support Trump, a man in enormous legal jeopardy and not just in the Judge Juan Merchan’s chilly New York courtroom, is fruitless. The Trump voter lives on an astral plane that eludes logic. But I think a huge element of it plays into the Trump fanbase’s group delusion: Everyone and everything is rigged against the former president.
My favorite parlor game is What If This Was Obama’s Trial For Paying Off A Stripper? Hmm. I’ll take your wagers here. Cohen noted in testimony that Trump didn’t seem to be overly concerned with Melania Trump’s reaction. “How long do you think I’ll be on the market?” Trump said, according to Cohen, an odd reaction to the potential end of his marriage, to be sure.
True love.
As Cohen’s testimony continues, where he said Trump told him to “just do it,” the effect all this is having is, well, either unclear or disgusting, depending on your political viewpoint.
During President Richard Nixon’s impeachment process, one Republican elected official after another abandoned him, and really didn’t think a thing about it. Why? Because they followed the law and the Constitution. Trump? The Constitution is a speedbump, a trifle, an old joke from 1789 that impedes Trump’s wannabe dictatorial impulses. Who knows how the U.S. Constitution polls at this point?
Even his former attorney general, William Barr, blasted Trump for months and then, incredibly, has endorsed him, as has former Person of Integrity Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. Sununu, Nikki Haley’s former main national spokesman, has now said he would endorse Trump this fall.
In yet another surreal moment in this trial, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and other Trump coterie members attended the morning session to show moral (?) support. Not sure how this plays out in the national polls, but it only highlights the theater of the absurd the GOP has become. Weirdly, I got a push notification fundraising appeal from Speaker Johnson mere hours after he humiliated himself at the Trump trial. Oh. That’s why he went. Surprise.
Whether this trial moves the needle for Trump either way remains to be seen. Some polls suggest a conviction hurts Trump. Maybe, but most of his followers seem to be impenetrable to logic, facts or appearances. Johnson, a Christian, sticking up for a guy who is accused of hooking up with a porn star and paying her off while his pregnant wife sat at home? How does that play in Louisiana evangelical circles?
They don’t care. Let’s hope a significant number of persuadable swing voters do.
