Dem
51
GOP
49
A new Marist College poll shows that 71% of Republicans want to see Donald Trump elected president again. If the question is rephrased as: "Would you vote for Donald Trump even if he has been convicted of a crime?" that drops to... 63%. So by and large, Republicans don't care if Trump is a convicted criminal. On the other hand, in a close election, losing 8% of the voters is a big deal. That would be enough to swing all the swing states to Joe Biden.
Overall, 64% of respondents don't want to see Trump elected again and that rises to 70% when asked how they would vote if Trump is convicted of a crime. In this light, Joe Biden's poll numbers look pretty good. Remember, all Democrats and a large majority of independents will vote against Trump if he is convicted of a crime. The Republican base simply isn't big enough to carry the day, especially if Trump is officially a felon.
We think that when the question is abstract like this, most Republicans say they will stick with him. And that might be true in the New York case being brought by DA Alvin Bragg, because many voters will just write if off as a small bookkeeping mistake and may also believe that Trump paid off Stormy Daniels just to keep Melania from finding out. However, if there is an extensive and widely publicized trial in Georgia, with multiple Republican Republican officials stating under oath that Trump broke the law and was trying to upend democracy and this is in the news for weeks, we think more than 8% will rethink their positions.
Yesterday, we alluded to the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit as a problem for Trump. We think that the political fallout from losing that would be much larger than the New York criminal case and probably larger than the Georgia one. Specifically, suburban women who like the Republicans on tax policy and the Democrats on social policy may be on the fence. But when a jury rules that he actually raped someone, that is almost certainly going to cost him votes with (suburban) women, particularly women who are worried about crime. Also, that trial is happening now, not in a many months, like the Georgia trial.
We strongly suspect that Trump does not realize that women do not like being raped, even when their rapist is a star. He is not taking the threat seriously enough. For one thing, he should have done his absolute best to try to buy Carroll off. She undoubtedly is very angry and wants to make a point, but for everyone there is some amount of money that will make them not angry. If he offered her $1 million, she would probably say: "Buzz off." Maybe even for $5 million. But for $50 million? She's not rich and there is surely some amount of money that would get her to call the show off; even if she has no interest in fancy cars or whatever, she could do a lot of good with $50 million. Possibly the maximum he was willing to pay was lower than the minimum she was willing to accept, so there was no deal (yet). Also, Trump sent in the C team instead of the A team. Joe Tacopina is a big blustery guy who is going to anger all the women on the jury right off the bat. And Alina Habba has little trial experience. If Trump had taken this trial seriously, he would have gotten much better (and more expensive) lawyers. There are no doubt plenty of lawyers in New York who don't like Trump but for $2000/hour, paid in advance, would repress that for a couple of weeks. (V)