York: Measuring the Trump conviction factor in the 2024 election

By Byron York | TownHall.com

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you’ve probably heard a lot of speculation about the effect former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction will have on the 2024 presidential race. Here’s the real answer, so far: We don’t know.

The first thing to remember about momentous events and public opinion is that it takes a while for people to process the full import of truly consequential developments. With the Trump verdict, of course partisan zealots on both sides know exactly how they feel. But other, more normal people are not entirely sure. They want to think about it and see how things work out before they settle on what they think.

That’s where polls come in. The first survey out of the gate came from Morning Consult. The verdict was announced at about 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, and by early Saturday morning, Morning Consult reported that a majority of those surveyed, 54%, approved of the guilty decision, and that 15% of Republican voters wanted Trump to drop out. A day later, a CBS News poll found that 57% said the jury reached the “right verdict,” but that not many people had changed their minds about the big picture of the 2024 race. Then an ABC/Ipsos poll found that 50% said the verdict was correct, 27% said it was not correct, and 23% don’t know if the verdict was correct or not.

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