62 percent say Trump should not be allowed to serve again if convicted of ‘serious’ crime: survey

Nearly two-thirds — 62 percent — of Americans in a new poll said that former President Trump should not be allowed to serve as president again if he is convicted of a “serious” crime.

The Yahoo News-YouGov poll found that a slightly smaller majority — 52 percent — said they believe that Trump has committed a serious crime at some point in his life.

The former president is facing a litany of investigations, including the Manhattan district attorney’s probe into an alleged hush money payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election and the Justice Department’s dual investigations into his handling of classified documents and role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Just over half — 52 percent — also said that they considered falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star to be a serious crime. Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan criminal probe in early April. He pleaded not guilty.

Some 66 percent also said that conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election was a serious crime, while 63 percent and 64 percent each said the same of attempting to obstruct the certification of the election and of inciting or aiding an insurrection against the federal government.

Further, 63 percent said they considered taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them to be a serious crime. 

Trump’s lawyers were spotted meeting with federal prosecutors on the classified documents case Monday, after CNN reported last week that the prosecution had obtained a recording of the former president discussing a classified document that remained in his possession in July 2021.

He reportedly appeared to acknowledge that the document was still classified on the recording, telling two authors that he couldn’t show them the document because they lacked security clearances.

However, despite his legal woes, a large portion Americans in the poll said that the various investigations into Trump don’t affect their opinion of the former president. Among respondents, 43 percent said they have the same opinion of him as before, while 34 percent said they feel more negative about Trump and 13 percent said they feel more positive.

Trump remains the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination amid a growing field of opponents. He sits more than 30 points ahead of his closest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a recent polling average from FiveThirtyEight.

The Yahoo News poll was conducted May 25-30 with 1,520 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.