Trump was convicted of 34 felonies. What is Biden’s next move?
Twelve jurors in New York have presented their fellow Americans with a simple question: are you willing to elect a convicted criminal to the White House?
On Thursday, Donald Trump was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money trial, a verdict making him the first former president to be found guilty of felony crimes in America’s near 250-year history.
It was a historic moment in which the US joined other democracies in showing the world it is willing to hold its political leaders to account.
It also represents an earthquake in a presidential election where poll after poll shows Trump to be the marginal favourite over incumbent Joe Biden, despite the president’s efforts to move the needle. If this doesn’t do it, perhaps nothing will.
Sentencing was set for 11 July, just days before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, where Trump would become the first convicted criminal to be anointed a party presidential nominee. A time traveller visiting from the year 2014 would be staggered.
Yet the one question that transfixed Washington throughout the seven weeks of the often tawdry trial has been: historians care, journalists care and late-night comedians definitely care, but will it matter to voters?
Trump benefited from the fact TV cameras were not allowed into the courtroom, reducing the drama and spectacle offered by the Watergate hearings or the OJ Simpson trial.
Polling has consistently shown that America is polarised and most views of Trump are already baked in. This is, after all, the man who memorably declared that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. He faces three further criminal cases, though this may be the only one to unfold before November’s election.
One of the most recent surveys, from PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist, found that 67% of voters said a conviction would make no difference for them in November’s election, while 76% said a not-guilty verdict would have no impact. About 25% of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty by a jury.
A Quinnipiac University national survey conducted in April found 21% of voters said a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump, while 62% said it would make no difference.
Every vote counts. In 2016, Trump won the presidency by fewer than 78,000 votes in three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won the presidency by fewer than 45,000 votes in three states: Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. That means every issue – from Trump’s guilt to Gaza to the cost of living to bad weather on polling day – matters in the margins.
Clearly the political class thinks so. A parade of Republicans, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, came to the court to show their fealty to the former president, with most of the fanboys wearing a Trump suit, white shirt and crimson tie.
This week, it was the turn of the Biden campaign, which deployed the actor Robert De Niro, a man who made his name playing gangsters, declaring Trump to be the biggest gangster of all. In a very New York moment, De Niro became embroiled in a verbal brawl with Trump supporters.
The battle between legal teams in the courtrooms may be over, but now stand by for all-out war in the court of public opinion.
Trump, who has recently been tempting fate by talking a lot about Al Capone and Hannibal Lecter, inevitably emerged from the court on Thursday to declare, frowning, that “it was a rigged trial, a disgrace”.
His campaign will now work around the clock to denigrate “lawfare” and claim the justice system was weaponised against him by Biden and his cronies. A fundraising email, headlined “Political Prisoner”, sent immediately after the verdict declared: “I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!”
In this victimhood plea, he has an invaluable ally in rightwing media, which have spent weeks conditioning their viewers for this moment. Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News: “We have gone over a cliff in America.”
All that is predictable. It is no secret that millions of Trump voters tuned out long ago and will be unmoved, or will perhaps redouble their faith in him. The trickier question is how his electoral opponent will handle this.
Biden has kept the trial at arm’s length, lest he be accused of political interference. But now the verdict is in, with its potential to turn off independent voters. What will Biden say to the nation?
His tone will be crucial. He must then decide how often and how hard to bring up Trump’s criminal conviction on the campaign trail and during their head-to-head debates.
The president’s opponent has just handed him the kind of campaign weapon that any candidate would dream of. Biden would be wise to use it with precision.
