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At roughly this point two years ago, there was plenty of polling on the 2022 midterm elections, though a key caveat lingered overhead: Republican-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t yet overturned Roe v. Wade.
It’s not that the data from before June 2022 was irrelevant, it’s that there was a broad understanding that the data was likely to change in response to a profound development that hadn’t yet happened. The pre-ruling polling came with an asterisk of sorts: The political landscape was poised to receive a jolt that the surveys hadn’t yet captured because they predated the relevant events.
Two years later, the details are different, but a related dynamic appears to be unfolding.
The latest NBC News poll offers very little good news for Democrats, but the data hints at a possible inflection point on the horizon.
The newest national NBC News poll shows former President Donald Trump leading current President Joe Biden by 5 points among registered voters, 47%-42%, in a hypothetical general-election matchup. But when the survey’s final question re-asks voters what their ballot choice would be if Trump is found guilty and convicted of a felony this year, Biden narrowly pulls ahead of Trump, 45%-43%.
To be sure, we’re dealing with some questions that do not yet have clear answers. There’s a great deal of uncertainty about when and whether the likely Republican nominee will face a criminal trial, and the possible verdicts are just as difficult to predict.
But the NBC News poll nevertheless tells the political world something important: In a close presidential race, a significant number of American voters would be reluctant to elect a convicted felon to the nation’s highest office. If Trump is found guilty, this survey suggests it would make the difference between a Biden defeat and a Biden victory.
What’s more, there’s plenty of related public-opinion research pointing in similar directions.
- A recent Monmouth poll found more than a third of South Carolina Republicans (36%) would want to see Trump replaced on the GOP ticket if he’s convicted of a crime before Election Day 2024.
- A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll from last week found more than half of swing-state voters wouldn’t vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime.
- After the New Hampshire primary, exit polling found only about half the state’s GOP voters said they would consider Trump fit for the presidency if he were convicted of a crime.
- Entrance polls in Iowa found nearly a third of Republican caucus-goers said that Trump would not be fit for the presidency if he were convicted of a crime.
- In December, a national YouGov poll found Biden and Trump tied at 44% each. The same poll, however, found Biden with a seven-point advantage in response to a potential Trump criminal conviction.
- In November, a New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump leading Biden in five key battleground states, but those leads turned to deficits when voters were asked about a possible Trump criminal conviction.
The typical response to analyses like these is that the shifts in public attitudes are relatively small. That’s true, but in a competitive race, it wouldn’t take much for the felony conviction for the GOP nominee to tip the scales in the incumbent’s favor.
Axios reported last week that the former president is privately “bracing for the genuine possibility that he’ll be the first convicted felon in U.S. history to represent a major party.” But is he bracing for the possibility that this might cost him the race?