Voters in Georgia were nearly evenly split over last week’s guilty conviction of former President Trump in his hush money case in New York, according to a new survey.
In a new poll, published by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday, 50 percent of voters said they agreed with the hush money verdict, while 44 percent disagreed.
Georgia is a critical state in the 2024 race. It was won by Biden in 2020, but Trump is ahead in the latest Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average and is seen as a favorite.
The poll was taken in the four days that followed last week’s verdict, in which the former president was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records over a hush money scheme.
The charges stemmed from reimbursements made to Trump’s former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels in 2016 to hide an alleged past affair.
Voters’ views on the historic verdict dramatically differed along party lines in Georgia, pollsters found.
Among Democrats, an overwhelming 96 percent said they agreed with the verdict, while 1 percent disagreed. About 86 percent of Republicans, meanwhile, disagreed with the conviction and 10 percent agreed, per the poll.
Independents were more split down the middle, with 52 percent agreeing with the decision and 42 percent disagreeing.
About 22 percent of voters said they are less likely to vote for Trump following the conviction, while 23 percent said it made them more likely to vote for him.
More than half of respondents — 54 percent — said it does not change their vote.
Trump shored up a slight 5-point lead over President Biden in a head-to-head match-up, the poll found.
“In a key state that went for Biden in 2020, half of voters agree with the guilty verdict that made Trump the first president to be convicted of a felony, but Trump still has the advantage in the 2024 race,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.
Georgia will eventually be the stage for one of Trump’s other legal battles, in which he and several allies face criminal charges over an alleged scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The election interference case, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, will likely not make it to trial before November while the appeals process to remove Willis from the case plays out.
The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted May 30 to June 3 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.