By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most American voters followed the criminal trial against the president Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden and the vast majority say his conviction will have no impact on their vote in the Nov. 5 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Tuesday.
About 67% of registered voters in the two-day poll said they had heard at least a fair amount about the trial of Hunter Biden, who was convicted Monday on charges of lying about his drug use to buy a gun. But 80% said the verdict, which marks the first time the child of a sitting president has been convicted of a crime, will not affect their likelihood of voting for Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election in November.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s conviction last month on charges of covering up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels carried slightly more weight in voters’ minds, with only 61% saying it would have no impact on their decision.
Independent registered voters, whose support both Biden and Trump are fighting for, aligned with the broader population: four in five said Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict would not affect their vote and three in five said the guilty verdict of Trump would not influence their vote.
Overall, 16% of registered voters said Hunter Biden’s conviction would make them less likely to vote for his father, and 4% said it would make them more likely to do so. About 24% of registered voters said Trump’s conviction would make them less likely to vote for him, while 14% said they would be more likely to do so.
The online poll surveyed 930 registered voters across the country and used a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
Trump and Biden were neck-and-neck in national polls, with Trump leading in some of the battleground states that could decide November’s battle.
Trump will be sentenced in July and faces prison time. The judge in Hunter Biden’s case has yet to set a sentencing date, but did outline a time frame that would place the sentencing no later than about a month before the presidential election.
Just over half of voters surveyed – or 57% – believe the president’s son should be jailed for his crimes. That was higher than the 46% in an earlier Reuters/Ipsos that said Trump should go to prison for his crimes. What could potentially fuel these views was that voters in the latest poll were more likely to say Biden received a fair trial, with 65% of them saying so, compared to 48% who said Trump’s trial was fair.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)
