“We got him!” Anti-Trumpers celebrate historic verdict

After Donald Trump was found guilty on all counts yesterday in his New York hush money trial, he said the real verdict in the case would be rendered on 5 November.

So what? He’s right, and wrong. Right because nothing about the trial can disqualify him as a presidential nominee and only voters will decide if he returns to the White House. Wrong, because this verdict was in fact real. Trump is a felon now. 

• He’s the first ex-president to be convicted of a crime, just as he was the first to stand trial.
• That will take time to sink in, whether America ultimately recoils or shrugs.
• In the meantime the number of voters in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin who said a guilty verdict might alter the way they vote dwarfs the slim margins by which these states were won in 2016 and 2020.

What the verdict means. The New York jury bought the prosecution’s central theory that Trump didn’t just falsify business documents but did so to defraud voters in the 2016 election by covering the traces of a payment to a porn star. But:

• Outside New York, millions of voters will buy Trump’s claim that an elected Democrat district attorney weaponised the justice system against him.
• The verdict will bring a new intensity of grievance to a campaign that was already thriving thanks to the trial.
• Trump will be sentenced on 11 July, four days before the Republican convention.

What happens next? No one knows, but between the convention and the election there are two main possibilities and one likely outcome:

Trump appeals. His team has already said he will, but the process can’t start until after sentencing and could take years. A failed appeal could mean jail, though that’s unlikely for a first-time offender and an appeals court could anyway adjust the sentence. Success would leave Trump free – to face more serious prosecutions in DC, Florida and Georgia.

Trump declines to appeal. Unlikely but possible. These are low level felonies with no mandatory punishment. He could be fined or put on probation and, with an eye on more looming trials and legal costs, take the rap and milk it for victimhood. 

Schrodinger’s brat. Either way, the trial’s fallout is likely to drag on past the election, leaving resolved the question of how to punish a presidential candidate found guilty of election interference, as he tries to get elected.

Where’s the merch? A fundraising email from the Trump campaign went out within 30 minutes of the verdict, and one supporter gave $5 million in response. 

The shrug. Two thirds of voters in a national poll released yesterday said a guilty verdict would make no difference to their vote. 17 per cent said a conviction would make them less likely to vote for Trump but 15 per cent said the reverse.

The recoil. In exit polls conducted during Republican primaries this winter, double-digit numbers of voters said that they wouldn’t back Trump if he were convicted of a felony. 32 percent of Republican voters in North Carolina’s March primary said Trump would not be fit for the presidency if convicted. An April survey by Ipsos and ABC News found that 16 per cent of those backing Trump would reconsider their support in such a situation.

Baked in. “No one is above the law,” the White House said. Indeed, Trump’s already been impeached twice, fined $83 million for sexual assault and defamation and criminally indicted for inciting an insurrection, mishandling secret documents and conspiring to change the result of the 2020 election. And yet in the past week at least three billionaires and a former rival who once called him unhinged (Nikki Haley) have rallied to his side.

What’s more… Trump keeps the pro-felon vote. Before the verdict, 9 per cent of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for him if he was acquitted.