Americans evenly divided over whether Trump should face prison time in hush money case: Poll

Americans are nearly evenly split over whether former President Trump should face prison time for his felony conviction in the New York hush money case, a new poll found.

According to the survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 50 percent of respondents said Trump should not be sentenced to jail time in the felony case, while 48 percent said he should.

Trump was convicted in May on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president to become a convicted felon. The charges stemmed from reimbursements made to Trump’s onetime fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair.

Opinions over prison time in the survey released on Monday varied between political parties, with 78 percent of Democrats saying the former president should serve jail time, and 86 percent of Republicans saying he should not. Independents were more evenly divided, with 50 percent stating Trump should be put behind bars, compared to 46 percent who said he should not.

A similar trend was observed among party lines when it comes to approval of the conviction, pollsters found. Eighty percent of Democrats said they approved of the hush money conviction, while 6 percent disapproved and 12 percent chose neither.

More than half — 55 percent — of Republicans disapproved of the conviction, while 14 percent said they approve, and 30 percent said neither. Independents in the poll were more mixed on the issue, with 32 percent who said they approve, 21 percent who disapprove and 47 percent who chose neither.

Most Democrats — 70 percent — said they are extremely or very confident Trump was treated fairly, while 63 percent of Republicans said they are not very or not at all confident the former president received fair treatment. More independents — 42 percent — said they are not confident Trump was treated fairly, compared to 23 percent of independents who said the opposite.

Trump, who is the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is now slated to be sentenced in September. His sentencing was originally scheduled for Thursday, three days before the Republican National Convention opens.

The delay came after Judge Juan Merchan agreed to adjourn a July 11 sentencing hearing so Trump could attempt to mount his presidential immunity defense. The former president has not argued he is immune from the hush money charges, but his lawyers argue the jury’s verdict must still be dismissed because some of the trial evidence was precluded under the Supreme Court’s new test. 

Various legal experts have noted incarceration would be a rare punishment for a first-time offender convicted of Trump’s charges in New York.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whose office brought the case against the former president, declined to say whether prosecutors will seek jail time, insisting that they would speak through their court filings in coming weeks.

Trump also faces three other criminal cases, including in Florida for alleged mishandling classified documents and in Washington, D.C., on charges of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election results. He is also charged in Georgia, where he is accused of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other cases and denies any wrongdoing.

The new poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24. It has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.