It’s only been a few weeks since the sham verdict of Trump’s trial came out, and Democrats are still waiting for the polls to show that Trump is in trouble. So far, we haven’t seen any proof.
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Various polls since the verdict have shown little to no shift in Joe Biden’s favor, and some even suggest a boost for Donald Trump, as he not only maintains a lead in most of the battleground states, but several post-verdict polls in blue states have his map expanding. Still, overall, pollster Frank Luntz previously concluded that the verdict wouldn’t ultimately move the needle either way.
“It’s soon enough to know that [the verdict is] not going to significantly alter the results at this moment,” he said. “That, in fact, the two presidential debates are going to be more important, that the gains that Trump made among union members, Hispanics, and young African American men are significant and they’re holding, that Biden’s gains among middle-aged female suburban voters, those are holding. And basically, this feels more like World War I — that is just simply a ground game.”
That hasn’t stopped the media from trying. On Monday, Politico concluded that a new poll they conducted with Ipsos shows the “real fallout from the Trump conviction.”
Among the most notable findings in our poll: 21 percent of independents said the conviction made them less likely to support Trump and that it would be an important factor in their vote. In a close election, small shifts among independent and swing voters could determine the outcome.
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As fascinating as these findings are, they’re not saying much different from what pre-verdict polling was telling us and what post-verdict polling showed us. The impact of the outcome was already baked into the cake in terms of the public’s response—hence the reason why, in the weeks since the the verdict, Trump’s numbers appear largely unchanged.
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Of course, immediately after getting the left’s hopes up that the verdict is actually devastating for the Trump campaign, they unloaded a huge caveat.
And yet there is also good reason to believe that Trump and his allies’ efforts to discredit the prosecution and conviction have cast doubt on the validity of the verdict among many people and limited the potential fallout for the former president-turned-felon.
A sizable number of Americans, including independents, question whether the verdict was the result of a fair and impartial process. And although most respondents rejected the idea that the prosecution was brought to help President Joe Biden, a large number (43 percent of all respondents) either strongly or somewhat agreed that was the rationale for the case.
Taken as a whole, the results of the poll suggest that Americans’ views on the Trump verdict may still be malleable — and could get better or worse for Trump.
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In other words, the verdict could be bad for Trump, but it might not be, and the impact of the verdict, regardless of whether it is good or bad, could change over time.
Does that sound like Politico really believes that the poll shows the “real fallout” from the verdict? Not even close. Once you get past the headline and the first couple of paragraphs, it’s clear they aren’t even pretending to know what the “real fallout” is and are just trying to give Democrats hope.