President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats are desperate for former and potentially future President Donald Trump to be convicted in the hush money trial, and a verdict could come any moment now. They're almost certainly hoping that if they can hang the "convicted felon" label on Trump, enough people will rethink their vote for him. It's election interference at its worst, and the bizarre press conference that the Biden reelection campaign put outside the courthouse on Tuesday didn't help. But, could the trial actually help Trump's chances?
Polymarket currently has Trump with a 56 percent chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, while Biden has just a 37 percent chance. Former First Lady Michelle Obama has a 4 percent chance, which is actually slightly higher than the 2 percent chance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in the race.
Trump was also leading Biden when the trial started on April 15, but only by 46-45 percent.
.@Polymarket - 🇺🇲 Presidential Winner
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 28, 2024
April 15 (Manhattan Trial start date)
🟥 Trump 46% (+1)
🟦 Biden 45%
🟨 RFK Jr 3%
TODAY
🟥 Trump 56% (+19)
🟦 Biden 37%
🟨 RFK Jr 2%https://t.co/YEgYhWX4FO pic.twitter.com/90zWBq4Yj9
The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard also highlighted how Sports Handle regards the race. The aggregator has Trump at a new high, with his chances of winning the presidency at 57.2 percent, while Biden is at 40.9 percent, having fallen from 47.1 percent at the end of April.
Bedard noted a gap from 1 point to 16.3 points in a month. He also points to the effect the trial could be having, and he even starts his write-up with such a point:
The odds that former President Donald Trump will win back the White House have hit a new high, likely driven by the historic trial he is facing and the building list of failures facing President Joe Biden.
...
Since the end of April, Trump has been locked in a New York courtroom to hear a hush money case against him featuring porn star Stormy Daniels and Trump’s discredited former private lawyer.
Leading pundits have slammed the government’s case, and Trump has been forced to make short statements outside the courthouse. He has traveled on weekends for rallies. Polls have shown that the trial has helped Trump, as has his more focused statements and rallies.
When it comes to the data, Bedard notes, "Betting on politics is not allowed in the United States, and as a result, aggregators such as Sports Handle take data from overseas sites on which betting on American politics is popular and can be surprisingly accurate."
It's not merely that the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) is weaponized against the president's top political opponents and everyday Americans as well. Biden's not exactly a trusted or popular incumbent as he seeks reelection. Bedard also writes:
Biden, meanwhile, has faced a growing list of problems since the end of April, including his mixed message on the Middle East war, continued inflation, and numerous misstatements. Also during that time, thousands of students camped out in sometimes violent protests of Biden’s lack of support for citizens of the Gaza Strip.
In addition to the pro-Hamas protests on college campuses that Biden and other top Democrats, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have been slow to condemn, poll after poll shows voters prefer Trump on top issues like the economy and immigration. Gallup last month did a poll showing that Biden is at historic lows on Americans having confidence in him when it comes to handling the economy and that inflation is a serious concern. Of the presidents going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, only George W. Bush was ranked lower, and we were dealing with a recession.
There's anecdotal evidence that the weaponization of the justice system is helping to convince voters to go for Trump. As actor Dennis Quaid told Piers Morgan, he wasn't going to support the former president, but he felt compelled by recent events.
As Matt pointed out, this also comes with a word of caution:
He was horrified by the weaponization of our justice system against the former president, which leeched into his second reason, which centered on constitutional grounds. Quaid added that Trump must be one of the most investigated people in the world, and nothing substantive has ever been unearthed by some of the most rabid anti-Trump lawyers and activists. He admitted that he wasn’t planning on supporting the former president’s candidacy, but recent events have persuaded him to do otherwise.
“People might call him an asshole, but he's my asshole,” said the actor.
...
The trick is keeping this momentum, which could easily be derailed if Trump gets too aggressive against Biden in the debates, as he did in 2020, or obsess about the 2020 election results. He has a better narrative, which Quaid even touched upon, which is a politicized DOJ that’s run amok and going after the opponents of the Democratic Party. Again, keep it simple; don’t get too crazy. Let the actions of the DOJ do the talking.
Quaid stands in strong contrast to Robert De Niro, the once-great actor who showed up as a special guest at the press conference that the Biden reelection campaign had on Tuesday. In addition to some serious hyperbolic warnings about how "government will perish from the earth" if Trump is elected once more, he called Trump supporters – his fellow Americans – "clowns," and then got into it with people heckling him as he called them "gangsters" and yelled "f**k you!"
Polls at the national and state level – such as in Minnesota, which could actually be in play – show that enough voters might rethink their vote if Trump is convicted. While most voters look to be sticking by Trump, those who do rethink their vote, especially if they don't vote for Trump after all, could change the outcome of what looks to be a close and competitive election.
Hoping for a Trump conviction in the event that it could boost his chances even further seems like a risky move, though, even if the conviction is ultimately overturned. Even with the jury trial being held in New York City, where Trump is unlikely to get a fair shake, and where the judge overseeing the trial has made some seriously questionable moves in addition to having a conflict of interest through his adult daughter, there is a likelihood of a hung jury, as legal experts like Professor Jonathan Turley agree, given how badly the prosecution botched this.
The charges in the hush money case were the first to come, in late March/early April of last year. Trump still won the GOP nomination, though, and his poll numbers often went up against Biden and his Republican presidential primary opponents as this and other charges in other criminal cases came in.
It's not merely the markets where Trump has a chance of winning, but the polls show he does as well. He has a lead of +1.1 against Biden, per RealClearPolling, with that margin having fluctuated, though Trump has remained in the lead for some time, an improvement from when he faced Biden in the 2020 election.
