How the Trump verdict will roil the election
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The Big Story
How the Trump verdict will roil the election
A ruling in the first criminal trial of a former president is now in the hands of the 12-person jury, and while the verdict is uncertain, this process is still historic and could have lingering impacts through November.
© Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP
The prosecution and defense gave their closing arguments on Tuesday after weeks of former President Trump’s first trial. He is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records over a hush-money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her to remain quiet about an affair she alleges they had.
Trump has denied the affair happened, and his defense team sought to attack the credibility of his former lawyer Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness who testified that Trump directed him to make the payment.
The verdict could be handed down any day now, in as short as a few hours or it could be a few days or longer. But the impacts of any verdict on the election itself are unclear.
The trial getting underway has not done much harm to Trump’s poll numbers, at least so far. He remains largely neck-and-neck with President Biden in national polling and leading him narrowly in most of the key swing states.
As The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports, if Trump is convicted, he will be the first former president and likely nominee of a major political party to be a convicted felon, giving Democrats new lines of attack against him as the election cycle heats up. But if he is acquitted, Trump will likely declare victory and that the verdict shows the charges against him were trumped up, as he has long alleged.
Trump could also point to an acquittal to support his claims that the many other charges he is facing in three other criminal cases are also politically motivated.
Polling has also been mixed on whether the public expects Trump to be found guilty. One poll from Suffolk University/USA Today found 65 percent of registered voters expect Trump to be convicted on all or some counts, while another from the Economist/YouGov found only 22 percent expect him to be convicted.
Regardless of what the public expects, the jury much reach a unanimous verdict on all counts to issue a decision. Otherwise, the result may be a hung jury, and the process of the trial could restart all over again.
Essential Reads
Key election stories and other recent campaign coverage:
Former President Trump on Wednesday praised Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for his refusal to recuse himself from upcoming cases related to the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, after it was reported that flags connected to the “Stop The Steal” effort were flown outside his homes. “Congratulations to United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for showing the INTELLIGENCE, COURAGE, and ‘GUTS’ to refuse …
President Biden and former President Trump are tied in a head-to-head Virginia match-up, new polling shows. A Roanoke College survey puts the pair of presidential hopefuls at 42 percent each in a one-on-one contest in the state, the first time the pollster has found Biden and Trump tied. Biden is boosted to a 2-point lead over Trump — 40 percent to 38 percent — when other candidates are included, but that difference is within …
Texas’s GOP primary runoffs put Republican intraparty divisions on full display Tuesday night as several mainline conservative incumbents fended off challenges from their right even as other incumbents got picked off. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and state House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) both survived primary contests against challengers who enjoyed support from either former President Trump or hard-line conservatives. …
The Countdown
Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:
In Other News
Branch out with a different read from The Hill:
Former President Trump fumed Wednesday just after his New York City criminal case was turned over to the jury for deliberations, blasting the judge in the case and bemoaning that “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.” Trump spoke to reporters gathered outside the courtroom moments after a jury of 12 New Yorkers began deliberating in the former president’s hush money criminal case. “Mother Teresa could not beat these …
The advocacy group Americans for Contraception is launching a new ad campaign that highlights Republican opposition to expanded birth control access and pushes senators to vote for the Right to Contraception Act. According to an announcement from the group on Wednesday, the first wave of the campaign features two ads running in the District of Columbia market between now and the Senate’s vote on the Right to Contraception …
Around the Nation
Local and state headlines regarding campaigns and elections:
Senate candidate Slotkin releases first TV ad (The Detroit News)
What We’re Reading
Election news we’ve flagged from other outlets:
Texas Republicans pick nominee to take on embattled Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (CNN)
Trump says he won’t ‘ban’ birth control. Here’s what he may do instead. (Politico)
Elsewhere Today
Key stories on The Hill right now:
NEW YORK — Former President Trump claimed Wednesday that he is being prevented from mounting an advice-of-counsel defense in his hush money trial — a defense his own lawyers made clear months ago that they would not invoke. A formal advice-of-counsel defense would enable the former president to argue he was acting reasonably based … Read more
A Fairfax County, Va., couple claims the worst in a series of ugly encounters with Martha-Ann Alito, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, happened after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the justice’s house, not before, as the justice has said. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Alito’s household … Read more
What People Think
Opinions related to campaigns and elections submitted to The Hill:
What’s the matter with libertarianism?
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