It’s one of the biggest questions in the wake of Donald Trump’s conviction: Did the verdict change anyone’s mind?
Early on, the answer appears to be an equivocal “yes.”
In interviews with nearly 2,000 voters who previously took New York Times/Siena College surveys, President Joe Biden appeared to gain slightly in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction last week for falsifying business records.
The group favored Trump by 3 points when originally interviewed in April and May, but this week they backed him by only 1 point.
While there’s no way to be sure whether their views reflect the broader electorate, the findings offer unusually clear evidence that the verdict has led some voters to reconsider their support for Trump.
Overall, Trump retains 93% of voters who told us they backed him in a previous survey — a tally that’s yet another striking show of political resilience from a candidate who is facing three more sets of criminal indictments.
But in a close election, losing 7% of your supporters can be decisive. In recent polls, Biden either leads or is within 2 points of Trump in states and districts worth the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency. A potentially crucial sliver of Trump’s former supporters — 3% — now told us they’ll back Biden, while another 4% say they’re now undecided. (The overall shift is closer to 2 percentage points because it also accounts for the smaller slice of voters who moved away from Biden when contacted again.)
The shift was especially pronounced among the young, nonwhite and disengaged Democratic-leaning voters who have propelled Trump to a lead in the early polls. Of the people who previously told us they had voted for Biden in 2020 but would vote for Trump in 2024, around one-quarter now said they would instead stick with Biden.
Voters who dislike both candidates — who have been dubbed double haters — were especially likely to defect from Trump. Overall, Trump lost more than one-fifth of the double haters who once backed him. That group of defectors was about evenly split between moving to Biden and saying they were now undecided.
Politically disengaged voters, an area of growth for Trump in recent polls, are especially likely to shift from Trump to Biden.
With five months to go until the election, there’s still plenty of time for Trump to regain his standing. The verdict is still fresh in the minds of voters, and shifts in public opinion in the wake of a major news event can prove fleeting. The study offers no reason to assume that Trump has lost these voters for good, and many still haven’t made up their minds about the verdict.
A plurality of those we called back for the study approved of the verdict, but a sizable share said they had not heard enough to say whether they approved or disapproved of the outcome. More than a quarter said they’d paid little or no attention to Trump’s legal battle.
The findings depict an unsettled electorate, one with many disengaged voters who might swing over the months ahead. Overall, 8% of respondents offered a different response in the presidential race than they had when they were first interviewed no more than eight weeks ago — a tally far higher than many might imagine in today’s polarized country. Even Biden retained only 96% of his former supporters, with 1.5% of those former supporters saying they would now back Trump, despite the news of his conviction, and the rest moving to undecided.
Contacting previous respondents may be an excellent way to track how people’s views change over time, but it’s not necessarily the best way to represent the whole electorate. On the one hand, Biden’s supporters were slightly likelier to retake the survey than those who backed Trump, 37% to 35%. The voters we reached again were generally older, more educated, more highly engaged and more likely to be white than those who did not respond.
On the other hand, these demographic groups were also more likely to stick by Trump than the younger, less educated, less engaged and nonwhite voters who were less likely to retake the survey.
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