1 in 5 Republicans thinks Trump is guilty: New poll

Nearly 1 in 5 Republicans in three key battleground states say they think former President Trump is guilty in the New York hush money criminal case that ended in a felony conviction last week, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a scheme to hide potentially damaging information about him from the American public ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

In the Florida Atlantic University PolCom Lab/Mainstreet Research poll — taken immediately after the 12-person jury returned the unanimous guilty conviction last Thursday — pollsters asked 2,068 adults in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin whether they think Trump is guilty, “regardless of how the jury in New York decided.”

Overall, 48 percent of respondents say Trump is guilty, 38 percent say he is not, and 14 percent say they don’t know.

While Democrats are most inclined to think Trump is guilty (79 percent), the survey shows some splintering among Republicans, 18 percent of whom say they think Trump is guilty, compared to two-thirds (66 percent) who say he is not, and 16 percent who say they don’t know.

Among surveyed independents, 50 percent say Trump is guilty, while 31 percent say he is not, and 19 percent say they don’t know.

Results are similar when broken down by their 2020 votes: 81 percent of 2020 Biden voters say they think Trump is guilty, while 15 percent of 2020 Trump voters say the same.

Among those who say they would vote for Trump over Biden in a hypothetical two-way race in 2024, 10 percent say Trump is guilty, compared to 74 percent who say Trump is not guilty, and 16 percent who say they don’t know.

Third-party and undecided voters in the three battleground states are also more likely than not to think Trump is guilty.

In a hypothetical 2024 head-to-head match-up, 52 percent of respondents who say they would vote for “another candidate” over both leading candidates say they think Trump is guilty, compared to 19 percent who say he is not guilty, and 30 percent who say they don’t know.

Among respondents who would be undecided in a head-to-head match-up in 2024, 49 percent say Trump is guilty, 17 percent say he is not and 34 percent don’t know.

In a three-way 2024 match-up that includes independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 37 percent of surveyed Kennedy supporters say they think Trump is guilty, compared to 27 percent who say they do not, and 36 percent who say they don’t know.

In The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average, Trump leads Biden by 1 point, 45.1 percent to 44.1 percent — well within most polls’ margins of error.

The poll was conducted May 30-31, 2024, and had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points overall.