Increasing numbers of Americans see the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump as irrelevant to his fitness for reelection, a CNN poll found Friday.
The poll appears to confirm the diminishing impact of prosecuting Trump to prevent his reelection. “These are all Biden trials,” Trump said before entering the courthouse on Tuesday. “This is done as election interference. Everybody knows it.”
A six-point swing occurred in less than a year among Americans who say the charges in the ongoing trial “are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency even if true,” the poll found:
- 2024: 45 percent said less irrelevant
- 2023: 39 percent said less irrelevant
The poll analyzed the findings:
About three-quarters of voters currently backing Trump against President Joe Biden in the 2024 election say they will stick with him even if he is convicted of a crime, while 24% of Trump’s backers say a conviction might cause them to reconsider their support. Trump is charged in four separate cases, and the survey question asked about being convicted of a crime without specifying a charge. The group that might reconsider amounts to about 12% of all registered voters in the poll, more than enough to make a difference in a close contest should he face conviction in any of the four trials he may face between now and Election Day.
The poll also confirmed a widely held belief that Trump will not receive a fair criminal trial in Manhattan. President Joe Biden won more than 86 percent of the Manhattan vote in 2020.
- Only 44 percent had confidence in the jury chosen for the case “will be able to reach a fair verdict”
- 56 percent were skeptical that a “fair outcome is in the cards”
“The jurors you have to worry about are the ones who are sort of ‘Trojan horse jurors,’ who are hiding bias that doesn’t appear on social media or are involved in any formal charges like the one that was just removed today.”
In addition, the survey appeared to confirm Trump’s argument that legal efforts to bankrupt and throw him in jail are politically motivated by the White House.
- Only 13 percent said Trump is being treated the same as other criminal defendants
- 34 percent said Trump is being treated more harshly than other defendants
- 34 percent said Trump is being more leniently than other defendants
- 19 percent said they had not heard enough to say
- 0 percent had no opinion
The CNN poll sampled 1,212 adults from April 18-23 with a 3.4-point margin of error.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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