As former President Donald Trump‘s New York hush money trial starts in earnest, he and President Joe Biden are grappling over how to deal with an enthusiasm gap, particularly among independent voters, for their 2024 runs before November.
While Trump’s trials are likely to politically advantage him and Biden with their respective bases of support, they may also underscore a lack of excitement from voters for the contest.
If Trump were a typical politician, his trials, including his presidential immunity Supreme Court oral argument this Thursday, would undermine his 2024 campaign, considering, in the words of Marist Institute for Public Opinion Director Lee Miringoff, he is “experiencing a daily pounding on the legal front.”
“Typically, he changes topic to throw off the scent, but not now,” Miringoff told the Washington Examiner of Trump. “He doesn’t control the agenda [of the trials].”
“It reminds me of Hillary in [2016] where Trump was moving the coverage about him around but [she] was stuck with the daily pounding over her emails,” he said of that election cycle’s Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. “Repetition seems to punch through in the social media world.”
Trump’s reiteration that his roughly seven-week hush money trial, in addition to his other civil and criminal legal cases, are politically motivated has helped him appeal to his base. The hush money trial, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, has been criticized as the weakest of the lawsuits against Trump, including those of federal special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia.
“This is a partisan Witch Hunt,” the Trump campaign wrote in an email Sunday with the subject line “Biden Trial Fact Sheet: Week 2” before Monday’s opening arguments. “The only reason this trial is happening is because President Trump is dominating in the polls.”
Nationally, Trump averages a statistically insignificant 0.3 percentage point lead over Biden, according to RealClearPolitics‘s polling aggregation, in part because of the former reality TV star and real estate mogul’s “hardcore base, which makes up about a third of the electorate,” Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray told the Washington Examiner.
“Nothing is likely to change their opinion,” Murray said. “The group of interest is the next 15% of the electorate, who are currently with Trump. They have some doubts about his past behavior and performance, but they really don’t like Biden.”
But a March Suffolk University-USA Today national poll minimized the likelihood of the hush money trial changing any minds, finding 44% of voters planned to follow it “very” or “somewhat closely,” but 55%, or a majority, said “not too closely” or “not at all.”
“But, when you look at party breakdown, just 37% of Republicans planned to watch it very-somewhat, compared to 62% of Democrats,” Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told the Washington Examiner. “This suggests a thirst by a majority of Democrats for the satisfaction of viewing a conviction.”
“However, among the all-important independents that determine presidential outcomes, there is the lowest interest in the trial, even lower than Republicans, with just 31% saying they’ll watch it ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ closely, while a whopping 68% indicated ‘not too closely’ or ‘not at all,’” Paleologos said. “And among independent women, the one demographic that prevented a red wave in 2022, 71% weren’t planning to follow it closely or at all.”
Despite a gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors, and others involved in the case, Trump has continued to defend himself after he was charged with 34 state felony counts of falsifying business records to hide extramarital affairs, including with porn star Stormy Daniels, before the 2016 election.
Trump has spoken out about the trial outside a New York City Criminal Court in Manhattan, during media interviews, and on social media, potentially benefiting from the proceedings not being televised amid reports he fell asleep during his jury’s selection.
“It’s a case as to bookkeeping, which is a very minor thing in terms of the law in terms,” Trump told reporters Monday. “This is a case where you pay a lawyer. It’s a lawyer and they call it a legal expense. That’s the exact term they use. We never even deducted it as a tax deduction.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt added to the Washington Examiner, “President Trump has proven he will remain defiant in the face of this unprecedented political lawfare, and it is clear that his support from the American people will only grow as they watch Joe Biden, Alvin Bragg, and the Democrats putting on this bogus show trial six months before the election.”
Although the White House has been careful not to comment too readily on Trump’s legal drama, Miringoff contended Biden could have a political edge if he uses it to underline differences between himself and his predecessor, especially because of the president’s relatively low approval ratings and the lack of enthusiasm for him personally, as opposed to someone who is not his opponent.
“Biden’s support is higher among those who definitely plan to vote,” the Marist College pollster said. “Trump is the greater motivator for Biden’s support.”
The Biden campaign appears to be mindful of the opportunity in an election where vote margins will matter, with spokesman James Singer mocking Trump for reportedly napping last week.
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“The verdict is in: Donald Trump and his campaign’s self-inflicted wounds are not paying off,” Singer told reporters. “Their strategy of not campaigning, wasting money, acting like small-time thugs, and pushing their extreme agenda is driving away voters.”
“At the Biden campaign, our eyes are wide awake: Voters want an economy that works for them, not billionaires, their rights protected instead of ripped away, and a president focused on solving their problems instead of being consumed by their own,” he said.
