Most voters think Donald Trump committed serious federal crimes, poll shows

Most voters think former President Donald Trump committed serious federal crimes, according to a new poll.

As many as 53 per cent of survey respondents said in the New York Times/Siena College poll that Mr Trump has committed serious crimes while 39 per cent said he has not and nine per cent said they were unsure or declined to give an answer.

Ninety per cent of Democrats said Mr Trump has committed serious crimes, while 17 per cent of Republicans said the same. Forty-nine per cent of independents agreed with the statement.

Jury selection has begun in Mr Trump’s hush money case in New York. The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records fraud after allegedly filing hush money payments as legal expenses to cover up an affair with adult actor Stormy Daniels. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies that the affair took place.

A recent AP-NORC poll found that 35 per cent think that Mr Trump did something illegal in the case. Half said he wouldn’t be fit to serve if he’s convicted.

In the New York Times/Siena College poll, Mr Biden is closing in on Mr Trump, who has been ahead of the president in recent surveys.

The poll was conducted between 7 and 11 April, and Mr Trump is now just a single percentage point ahead – 46 to 45 per cent, with eight per cent saying they’re unsure or declining to answer the question.

Shortly before Mr Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in late February, he led by 48 to 43 per cent.

Mr Trump’s narrowing lead appears to come after a larger share of those who supported Mr Biden in 2020 returned to his side – the president’s numbers are improving among Democratic voters.

In February, Mr Trump received the backing of 97 per cent of his 2020 voters while Mr Biden got the support of 83 per cent of his 2020 voters.

Now those figures stand at 94 per cent for Mr Trump and 89 per cent for Mr Biden.

Both the 2016 and 2020 elections were decided by tens of thousands of votes in a small number of swing states even as the Democratic candidates were winning the popular vote by millions.

While the race is tightening, as many as 64 per cent say in the poll that the US is heading in the wrong direction and nearly 80 per cent say that the economy is fair or poor.