Donald Trump is convicted of all 34 charges. Now what next? How it will impact the US presidential elections in 2024.
The United States has not experienced this kind of situation in a span of 100 years where a prominent leader with a criminal record is running in the race for president and has a chance of winning. On Thursday, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of falsifying business records to hide the hush money payment to a porn star. A panel of 12 New Yorkers agreed that Donald Trump is guilty as charged. However, it is still not clear how this conviction will affect Trump’s chances in the upcoming US presidential elections.
The Republican billionaire Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges in New York. Trump, who is in the presidential race to become president for the second term, is not sure whether he will serve as president in 2025 or whether he will be on probation in jail.
Donald Trump, former president with a criminal record
Donald Trump, who will turn 78 years old in June, has written his name in the political history of the US by becoming the first former president with a criminal record and the first convict to be chosen as a nominee for a major political party. This has given the Democrats plenty of reasons to use in their attack advertisements as the US presidential elections against President Joe Biden are approaching.
Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 elections to hush the actress over a sexual encounter that the actress alleges they had.
How Will Trump’s Conviction Impact the US Presidential Elections in 2024?
Throughout the trial, Trump’s poll numbers remained steady, and he is in head-to-head competition with President Joe Biden in national polling, but Trump is ahead of Joe Biden in many of the key swing states.
Two-thirds of the people in a recent Marist poll stated that Trump’s conviction will not change their vote, while the rest of the people were divided into two groups: those who are less likely to support Trump and those who are still most likely to support Trump despite his conviction. Chair of the political science department at North Greenville University in South Carolina, Higgins expects that around one percent of the voters will change their vote from Trump to a third-party candidate or will not vote at all.
According to some other experts, even a minor decline in Trump’s vote could affect the election, especially in six or seven states where the race is expected to be close.
A political analyst and history professor at Binghamton University in New York State, Donald Nieman, stated that “Since the upcoming elections will be decided by a few thousand votes in some states, this conviction will surely hurt Trump.”.
When Yahoo News asked the Americans about the hush trial of Donald Trump, 31% said that they found this trial boring, while 26% stated that they were interested. Whereas only 50% stated that falsifying business records to cover up hush money was a serious crime.