The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 23
This week:
- Will Trump’s conviction collapse his campaign?
- Virginia possibly on the table?
- No comeback Manchin or Donnelly
President 2024
Trump conviction: Democrats have really done it this time. Employing a tortured legal theory in an extremely biased jurisdiction, relying solely on the testimony of a convicted perjurer, and based on a victimless bookkeeping crime for which no one has ever been prosecuted in such a way previously, they have successfully convicted their political nemesis of a crime during an election year when he has been consistently leading their incumbent president.
No sane person who understands this situation believes in his heart that justice has been served or the people of New York protected by prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s naked act of partisan aggression in this case. And the notion that Joe Biden and his administration are not involved, credibility aside, is no longer relevant, now that Biden himself has openly endorsed this abuse of the justice system from which he stands to benefit politically.
Fallout: But lamentations over the state of the legal system and the lengths to which political actors are now going can only get us so far. The important thing to consider now are the political consequences, which could be rather unpredictable.
For Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters — the people who show up to vote for him in GOP primaries — the charges that he faced not only in Manhattan but also in federal court and in Georgia were all baked into the cake. They were never bothered by any of this. In fact, they had been led to understand earlier on that Trump would be tried on the more serious federal charges first, which implies that they were not bothered by the possibility of Trump running while convicted of a crime.
But for all the talk of this backfiring on Democrats, there is no guarantee that the voting public as a whole will be as unmoved as Trump’s most ardent supporters are by this or other potential convictions.
Trump’s campaign has, to date, taken consolation in the fact that the verdict has led to a massive surge in small campaign donations and an apparent consolidation of Republican support for Trump, even among those Republicans least likely to support him. This is a backfire in at least one sense. But it reflects only the views of those likely to back Trump anyway. The big question is, where will everyone else fall?
Post-conviction polling: So far, we just don’t know, but we have a few early hints. A question we have been asking here for many months now is whether a criminal conviction, no matter how dubious, will cause a significant falling-off of support for Trump. At this point, the jury is still out, so to speak. But the potential danger to Trump’s campaign is already evident.
A snap poll taken Friday by Morning Consult found that 54 percent approve of the jury’s verdict against Trump, and only a slight majority believe he should not be imprisoned for what he did (not to say that most respondents would likely be able to explain what he did). Just over half said that he should end his campaign. And this is more or less consistent with other polling. The implication is that a vast number of voters who were unaware or not paying attention to the criminal trials will simply stop supporting Trump because he is a convict.
However, note that these results do not directly show Trump’s support slipping versus Biden. Although it is still too soon to say with much certainty, early head-to-head polls do not show a massive shift in support, either.
Before the verdict in Manhattan, the picture was of a national race that is roughly tied, with Trump typically polling ahead but by less than the margin or error. The first two polls taken after the verdict show a similar situation with a tied race. In one poll taken partially after the verdict, Trump had been slightly behind in recent months but now ties Biden. In another — the same Morning Consult poll that showed 54 percent approving the jury verdict — Trump trails by one point, well within the margin of error, whereas within the last month the result in this same poll has ranged between a tie and a two-point Trump lead. A third poll with a small post-verdict sample (477 “recontacted voters”) found Biden and Trump tied at 44 percent in a five-way race with the third-party candidates. That poll, by Echelon Insights, had previously shown Trump ahead by two.
Therefore, even if this could ding him at the margins, fears of some kind of massive Trump collapse appear to be unfounded, since such a thing would definitely move the needle significantly in the national polls.
Yes, Trump remains as disliked and unpopular as ever, but the saving grace for him is that his opponent is exactly the same in this respect and additionally has appalling job-approval ratings that have not improved after more than a year of Biden campaigning and spending for reelection.
On the other side, there is even less credible evidence that the conviction will significantly help Trump by framing Biden and the Democrats as a greater threat to democracy and the rule of law, as some conservatives seem to be hoping.
Electoral College: However, the U.S. is not just a nation of more than 330 million people; it is also a nation of 50 sovereigns, each of which will be holding a separate presidential election this fall. The real question pertains to the handful of states that will decide the presidential race in November. Trump has already shown twice — once by doing it and once by coming extremely close — that he can win the Electoral College without national popular vote.
So far, we have no evidence of how Trump’s conviction will affect the race specifically in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, or Wisconsin, as it has been nearly a month since most of these states have been polled.
Our assessment up to now has been that Trump needs only 269 electoral votes to win and currently has a decisive lead in enough states for 268 electoral votes. There are another 61 toss-up electors outstanding, including those of the states mentioned above and the Second Congressional District of Nebraska, one of the two states that awards its electors piecemeal.
This assumes that Biden carries all of the states he won decisively in 2020. But if Virginia is genuinely in play, as one poll from last week suggests, that means there are actually 74 toss-up electors, every single one of which Biden needs to win in order to remain president. That leaves the map looking like this.
This could change, however, if we find evidence that the voters in relevant states are turning against Trump because of his conviction.
Governor 2024
Indiana: With former Sen. Joe Donnely (D) announcing his resignation as ambassador to the Vatican last week, there has been a brief burst of speculation that Democrats could set aside the result of their May 7 primary and instead nominate him for governor against the Republican nominee, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, the man who defeated Donnelly for Senate in 2018. Democrats already voted to nominate Jennifer McCormick against Braun, but they have previously set aside a nominee at convention. In 2016, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D) replaced nominee Baron Hill on the ballot for Senate and lost anyway.
However, the state party chairman denied to Howey Politics Indiana that there are any plans afoot to do anything like that again.
Indiana has only gotten redder since 2016, such that Braun is the overwhelming favorite no matter whom the Democrats nominate. Likely Republican Retention.
West Virginia: Having just officially left the Democratic Party to head the organization Americans Together, retiring Sen. Joe Manchin has now explicitly disavowed any intention of returning to the state and running for governor again as an independent. He has instead endorsed the Democratic nominee, Steve Williams. Likely Republican Retention.
