NEW YORK (AP) — Convicted of 34 crimes, Donald Trump cannot own a gun, hold public office or even vote in many states.
But in 158 days, voters across America will decide whether he will return to the White House to serve another four years as the country’s president.
Trump’s conviction in his hush money trial in New York on Thursday is a stunning development in the already unorthodox presidential election with profound consequences for the justice system and perhaps for American democracy itself.
But in a deeply divided America, it is unclear whether Trump’s status as someone with a felony conviction will have any impact at all on the 2024 election. Trump remains in a competitive position with the president Joe Biden this fall, even as the Republican former president now faces the prospect of a prison sentence ahead of the November election.
At least in the short term, there were immediate signs that the unanimous guilty verdict helped unite the disparate factions of the Republican Party, as Republican officials in Congress and in state capitols across the country rallied behind their presumptive presidential nominee supporters, while his campaign was expected to benefit from this. of a flood of new fundraising dollars.
Standing outside the courtroom, Trump described the verdict as the result of a “rigged, disgraceful trial.”
“The real verdict will be pronounced by the people on November 5,” Trump said, referring to Election Day. “This is far from over.”
The immediate response from elected Democrats was muted by comparison, although the Biden campaign issued a fundraising appeal within minutes of the ruling that showed the fundamentals of the election had not changed.
“We are pleased that justice has finally been served,” the campaign wrote. “But this convicted felon can STILL win back the presidency this fall without a huge wave of Democratic support.”
Strategists predict a moderate impact
There has been some polling on the impact of a guilty verdict, although such hypothetical scenarios are notoriously difficult to predict.
A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that only 4% of Trump supporters said they would withdraw their support if he is convicted of a crime, while another 16% said they would reconsider.
On the eve of the verdict, the Trump campaign released a memo from its polling team suggesting that the trial’s impact is “already baked into the race in target states.”
Trump campaign advisers argued the case would help them motivate their core supporters. So many donations came into WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, that it crashed. Aides worked quickly to set up a backup platform to collect the incoming money.
Trump attended a fundraising event Thursday evening that was planned before the sentencing, according to a person familiar with his plans who was not authorized to speak publicly.
His top two campaign advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, were not with him in New York but in Palm Beach, Florida, where the campaign is headquartered.
And while it may be days or weeks before we know for sure, Trump’s critics in both parties generally agreed there may not be much political fallout, though some hoped the convictions would at least would have marginal impact in what is likely to be a close collaboration. election.
Sarah Longwell, founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, who regularly conducts focus groups, suggested the guilty verdict could help keep Biden on the margins because of so-called “double haters” — a term used to describe voters who dislike Trump and Biden – pushing away from Trump.
But most of all, she suggested that voters simply haven’t followed the process closely.
“The best thing about the end of the trial is that it ended,” said Longwell, who described the court proceedings as a distraction from more serious issues in the campaign. “There will now be an opportunity to focus the story on who Trump is and what a second Trump term would look like.”
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse predicted the process could ultimately have little impact in a lightning-fast news environment with several months before the first polls open.
“Voters have short memories and even shorter attention spans,” Newhouse said. “Just as the former president’s two impeachments did little to diminish Trump’s support, this guilty verdict could be overshadowed in three weeks by the first presidential debate.”
A post-conviction campaign plan
The judge imposed the sentence on July 11, just four days before the scheduled start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Each of the charges for falsifying corporate documents carries a prison sentence of up to four years, although prosecutors have not said whether they plan to seek a prison term. It is also not clear whether the judge – who earlier in the trial warned of prison sentences for violating the gag order – would impose that sentence even if he were asked to do so.
Trump will be able to vote in Florida, where he established his residency in 2019, if he is not in jail on Election Day.
And prison time would not stop Trump from continuing his quest for the White House.
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trumpwho was in court with the former president this week and is also co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a Fox News Channel interview before the verdict that Trump would still try to campaign for president if convicted .
If Trump is sentenced to prison, she said, “If that’s the case, we’ll have him do virtual rallies and campaign events. And we’ll have to play the hand we’re dealt.”
There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, although Trump is expected to hold fundraisers next week.
Biden himself has yet to intervene.
He spent the night at his family’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after celebrating the anniversary of his son Beau’s death at church earlier in the day.
Voters struggle with the verdict
Texas voter Steven Guarner, a 24-year-old nurse, said he has not yet decided who he will vote for in the upcoming election.
Guarner, an independent, said the verdict will be a deciding factor for him once he reviews the details of the trial. However, he did not think this would influence the many voters who have already decided on the rematch between Biden and Trump.
“I think his base is the type that might not really care or agree with him about the justice system,” Guarner said of Trump.
Republican officials from Florida to Wisconsin, Arkansas and Illinois even condemned the verdict as a miscarriage of justice by what they described as a politically motivated prosecutor and a blue state jury.
Brian Schimming, chairman of the executive committee of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, called the case against Trump a “sham” and a “national disgrace.”
“There was no justice in New York today,” Schimming charged.
And Michael Perez Ruiz, a 47-year-old who ordered food from Miami’s Versailles restaurant shortly after the ruling, an icon of the city’s Republican-leaning Cuban-American community, said he would continue to support Trump.
“I would vote for him 20 times,” Perez Ruiz said.
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AP writers Emily Swanson and Zeke Miller in Washington; Jill Colvin and Michelle L. Price in New York; Todd Richmond in Madison, Wis.; Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami; and Valerie Gonzalez of McAllen, Texas, contributed.
