Political world braces for Trump verdict

The looming verdict in former President Trump’s hush money trial will send ripples through the 2024 presidential race and determine whether Trump will run for the White House as a convicted felon.

The defense and the prosecution delivered closing arguments Tuesday. The jury will deliberate over 34 counts of falsifying business documents in connection to an alleged hush money scheme involving porn actor Stormy Daniels. The jury must reach a unanimous verdict on each count.

While only a portion of the public has followed the day-to-day developments of the trial, that is likely to change once there is a verdict.

“I don’t think outside of the base of both parties, a lot of people are paying attention to the trial until the verdict is read,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.

The verdict will be historic. Either Trump will be campaigning for the White House as a convicted felon, giving Democrats fresh fodder and possibly turning off independent voters, or he will be acquitted as the first U.S. president to stand trial, giving him a rallying cry for the rest of the campaign.

The political significance of the trial was on display Tuesday, as the Biden and Trump campaigns held dueling events outside the courthouse.

The Biden campaign deployed actor Robert De Niro and retired law enforcement officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, for a press conference to bash Trump as dangerous and a threat to democracy. 

It was the first time the Biden campaign held an event around the trial. Communications director Michael Tyler explained why it chose to do so, saying to the media, “Because you all are here.”

“We want to remind the American people … of the unique, persistent and growing threat that Donald Trump poses to the American people and to our democracy,” he said.

Trump campaign aides assembled moments later to deride the Biden event as a sign of desperation.

“Why is Joe Biden now making this a campaign event after months of weaponizing the legal system against President Trump? Because Joe Biden’s numbers are in the tank,” senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said.

Republicans have in recent weeks made Trump’s trial central to their own messaging, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and a cavalcade of other lawmakers traveling to New York City to attend the proceedings and denounce the case outside the courthouse.

Trump and his allies have assailed the case as “lawfare” emanating from the Biden White House, and a guilty verdict is expected to further fuel those claims, even though there is no evidence the White House has played a part in the cases brought against Trump.

In the event Trump is found not guilty, the former president and other Republicans are expected to take a victory lap and hail the outcome as vindication, while also using it to cast doubt on the validity of the other charges against Trump.

An acquittal would be a “political gold mine,” one GOP strategist close to Trump said.

President Biden has kept his distance from the trial, aside from a few jokes at Trump’s expense. But when a verdict is read, the president will likely have to address it in some form. The White House did not address a question Tuesday about whether Biden would deliver remarks at the end of the case.

A source familiar with the matter said the Biden campaign is still weighing whether it will embrace the label of “convicted felon” for Trump or use it in attack ads. But the campaign and Democrats are more broadly expected to make the case that Trump is a threat to democracy and personal freedoms and must be stopped at the ballot box.

Polling has shown there is a swath of voters who may shift their views on Trump depending on the outcome. A Quinnipiac University national survey conducted in April found 21 percent of voters said a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump, while 62 percent said it would make no difference.

Among Trump voters, the poll found 62 percent said a conviction would make no difference in their vote, while 31 percent said it would make them more likely to support Trump.

Those figures could be meaningful, given polling shows a close race in a handful of battleground states. A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of polls shows Trump leading Biden by 2 percentage points in Michigan and 2 points in Pennsylvania, while the two are virtually tied in Wisconsin.

“There’s a big political irony here, in that the trial and the verdict are obviously historic, but at the same time due to the nation’s deep political polarization, and the heavy public exposure Trump has had for the past eight years, opinions of him are pretty much baked in,” said Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University.

A guilty verdict may give some undecided voters pause, but may not weigh as heavily as factors such as inflation, immigration or crime, Reeher said. A not guilty verdict could also give some reassurance to undecided voters who are considering a vote for Trump. 

“In either case, the effect is probably marginal,” Reeher said. “However, even marginal effects in a very close election could matter.”