by Robert Romano
Fifteen percent of independents said a New York City conviction would make them more likely to support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election against incumbent President Joe Biden, while only 11 percent said it would make them less likely to support them. NPR-Marist poll conducted May 21-23 to introduce. 74 percent said it wouldn’t make a difference.
Additionally, the poll found that 10 percent of Republicans said a conviction would make them less likely to vote for Trump if convicted, and 7 percent of Democrats said they would be more likely to vote for Trump, a +3 percent advantage for Biden.
But when independents are included, with 15 percent saying they are more likely to support and 11 percent saying they are less likely, it translates to a +4 advantage for Trump.
Overall, this would mean that a conviction by Democratic prosecutors, a jury and a judge in navy blue New York could be counterproductive in helping Biden’s re-election, as it appears to give Trump a +1 percent on the issue and -1 percent for Biden.
This means that in an election in which 160 million people could vote, 1.6 million more voters could vote for Trump and 1.6 million fewer for Biden, or +3.2 million online.
This kind of result should be largely unsurprising, as Trump has jumped to the lead in most national polls this election cycle, despite an FBI raid on his residence in Mar a Lago, Florida, and four different trials brought by Democratic prosecutors in New York, Washington, D.C. D.C., Miami, Florida, and Fulton County, Georgia, with a photo taken in Georgia.
All were intended to test Trump’s political base and break down his support, but, rather predictably, they only strengthened his support and appear to be exerting influence on independents who appear on the fringes to oppose the political persecution of their opponents.
Ironically, Democrats are doing this on a platform of trying to convince the public that Trump, who is not in power and has no history of prosecuting political opponents while in power, he is somehow the one who wants to go after his political opponents.
In response to the judgment, Biden’s campaign issued a statement warning as much “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He conducts an increasingly senseless campaign of vengeance and vengeance…”
Their solution was to arrest and convict Trump first, and maybe even lock him up (we’ll find out on July 11)! — stop it, as if the only way to stop political persecution was somehow to continue it.
This makes the Democrats’ argument like saying that the way to prevent nuclear war is to launch missiles first. In the case of political accusations, mutually assured destruction (which is still destruction) favors factions that do not really care about the rule of law. This is not deterrence, but escalation.
So how do we answer?
From the outset, independents seem to be leaning toward Trump in featherlight of the conviction, so for Republicans, the goal of persuasion appears to be to support Republicans who feared the perception as a negative that the trial was unfair and politically motivated, the same message of which could also be used to maximize the number of independents who are willing to oppose putting political opponents in jail.
If done correctly, Trump and Republicans could maintain or expand the stance of independents and the few Democrats on the issue who already opposed impeachment, while winning back most of the few Republicans who felt it made them less likely to support him.
For everyone else, the Trump campaign’s goal would be to show how incarcerating political opponents is tyrannical, to Biden’s detriment. Trump can support with this by calling for the restoration of constitutional order and civil society, but to be persuasive he would have to resist the impulse to call for the in-kind imprisonment of his political opponents.
Instead, the goal should be to convince enough independents and Democrats that political impeachments are destroying our Constitution. Heading into the 2024 elections, it’s a persuasive moment, but it may not be the one Biden and Democrats were hoping for.
As it turns out, tyrannically imprisoning political opponents may actually be deeply unpopular among nonpartisan voters, who constitute the largest voting bloc, in a country where power is decided by the consent of the governed. Wow. What a shock!
In all seriousness, Democrats are waving their hands, knowing that going after an opponent is seen as tyrannical and is therefore unpopular, hence their desperate attempt to convince voters that no, Trump is somehow a tyrant. Good luck with that. Seeing is believing. As Trump declared yesterday, “It’s not over yet.”
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Robert Romano is vice president of public policy at the Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
“Donald Trump at a rally” photo by Daniel Scavino Jr..
