The trial no one talked about
Exclusive polling: Journalists may be transfixed, but voters shrug at Trump’s NYC legal woes. Here's why.
“What is this dismal fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a melodrama?”
Not Donald Trump's words as he surveyed the courthouse that would decide his fate, but those of Charles Dickens as he looked upon the prison on the same site 180 years before. Built in Egyptian Revival style, the grand yet dank Halls of Justice were nicknamed “the Tombs”.
At the Tombs, taking on the swamp was a daily occurrence. The building was perched on an infilled freshwater pond that used to sustain the first inhabitants of the city. Down in the basement where the prisoners were kept, water would seep back in as if trying to drag the building down with it. It was so bad Dickens declared that “such indecent and disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in the world.” Not even Trump has gone that far.
Now every morning journalists line up out the door of its Art Deco successor, its sheer granite edifice towering over them.
A friend of mine gets there at 6am to be sure of a seat, and even then often ends up in the overflow room. He tells me of long stretches of boredom, but flashes of high drama: Stormy Daniels stating the former president did not use a condom when she alleges they had sex, former Trump adviser Hope Hicks bursting into tears as she gave testimony, the defendant’s occasional glares at his lawyers.
But for all the press might be transfixed, the American public have barely noticed it.
In the last five weeks I’ve visited the Mexican border in Arizona to talk to Hispanic voters, who are tempted by the Republicans for the first time over the crisis there. I’ve been with suburban women in Nevada eager to shun Biden but nervous about what that will mean for abortion. And I just got back from the college town of Madison, Wisconsin, seeing if the Democrat base can hold up throughout the Israel/Gaza conflict.
There has been one common fact to every conversation: the trial of Donald Trump in New York City did not come up unprompted once.
Polling confirms this. J.L. Partners asked a representative sample of American adults how closely, if at all, they were following the Trump trial. Barely more than one in ten (13%) said they were paying “a great deal” of attention to it.
Asking about the impact on people’s views of Trump is even more revealing. Three in ten (30%) say it will have no impact on their view and they are already positive about him. Four in ten (39%) say it will have no impact and they are already negative. Just 11% say it will make them more negative, which is offset by the percentage who say it will make them feel more positively (12%).
That means, in voters’ own judgement, the trial has had a net positive impact for Trump, by a margin of one point. In pollster’s terms, that is within the margin of error. We can safely say it has no tangible impact.
Why do so few people care? There are the obvious explanations. The NYC case is the most tenuous of all the indictments against Trump: most lawyers think it spurious, and even the well-qualified authors of The Trump Indictments cannot say it would be out of place in a regime pursuing political opponents. The same J.L. Partners polling finds 52% view the case as politically motivated. We also know the loyalty that many Trump voters have to their man.
But something else has taken place. Trump has been, as ever, under constant attack from his opponents. Many of these have simply felt unfair (the NYC case, misrepresentation of Trump at rallies) or been disproved (Russia election interference, the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s laptop). The overall effect has led to voters characterising criticisms - however fair they are - as sitting in the unfair category. Trump’s opponents have bored people into tolerance of Trump.
Before Biden’s presidency, the inoculation against this boredom was Trump’s real-life behaviour, on show every day. But when you ask voters for their main memory of the Trump administration, it is no longer political drama or coronavirus or January 6: it is a better economic situation. Without Trump directly reminding voters of his bad side from the White House briefing room, all they hear about him is from those implacably opposed to him. The result is a shrug rather than a bristle.
I do not think this phenomenon would extend to the other three cases being pursued against Trump. They present more legal bite. They resurface memories of the Trump presidency. They include much more damaging witness statements from his own side; the former vice president Mike Pence would likely testify against Donald Trump in the federal election interference case. But these now look set to be delayed beyond November.
What if Trump is found guilty in New York? It looks increasingly unlikely: Stormy Daniels’ wide-ranging testimony opened a gap for the defence to appeal on inadmissible facts, and Michael Cohen was embarrassed last week as a key part of his testimony was thrown into doubt. But if he is, the same dynamics as described above would still apply. We know his voters would be behind him. Look at the below chart, which shows how likely Trump’s current supporters would be to still support their candidate.
It shows that only 2% would be very unlikely to vote for him if he is convicted of a crime before November, only 3% somewhat unlikely. That is within the margin of error of zero.
The NYC court case likely concludes this coming week. You are going to see lots of headlines about it.
But it has been the biggest non-story in America. And there is one person who benefits from that: Donald Trump.
Donald Trump grew up, and has remained, a spoiled, self-indulgent rich boy. It was appalling that his coarseness and lying bluster helped win him the presidency of the United States.
That said, the case against Trump in New York is purely political. And brought by an AG and DA whose every act and utterance are anathema to many, including this old, lifelong Brooklynite.
Now, four years after his stolen-election shenanigans and foul exhorting of his followers to teach a lesson to Congress, but also four years of increasing domestic turmoil and crime, pernicious infiltrations by unvetted migrants, violent antisemitism, indoctrinating of kids with weird anti-bias and pro-gender fluidity, and other Democratic gifts, who thinks Trump is the problem?
Well, many do. Many think that Trump's attitude towards power is a problem. But even they think this case is a gross overreach by socialist-progressive operatives.