丑闻有打旋到处前总统唐纳德·特朗普自从他的首次总统竞选2016年。但截至周四，他在纽约封口费案中的所有罪名都成立，他现在正式成为一名被定罪的重罪犯。这一事实能超越所有其他头条新闻，成为2024年大选的游戏规则改变者吗?
乍看之下，民调显示这一定罪将显著削弱特朗普的支持率。一;一个CNN/SSRS四月调查发现，尽管76%的特朗普支持者表示无论如何都会支持特朗普，但24%的人表示，如果特朗普被定罪，他们“可能会重新考虑”对他的支持。和一个爱默生学院的五月民意调查发现25%的选民表示，纽约州的有罪判决将使他们不太可能投票给特朗普。
A很少有民意测验专家也曾问过两个版本“你会投票给谁?”问题最近几周:一个简单明了，另一个是问受访者，如果特朗普在纽约案件中被定罪，他们会投票给谁。平均而言，特朗普在这些民调中从不考虑定罪的领先1个百分点变为落后6个百分点。
但是民主党人不要对这些数字过于兴奋是明智的。再来看看CNN/SSRS民调的措辞:24%的川普支持者表示他们“可能会重新考虑”自己的投票。这并不等同于“肯定会改变”他们的投票!鉴于这一信念，许多特朗普支持者可能只是对自己的选票产生了信任危机，而不会直接转向乔·拜登总统。
基本上就是这样ABC新闻/益普索的另一项民意调查找到了。像CNN/SSRS一样，他们问特朗普的支持者，如果特朗普在纽约州的案件中被定罪，他们会怎么做，但他们提供了“重新考虑”和“不再支持”两个选项16%的人表示会重新考虑支持特朗普，但只有4%的人表示不再支持特朗普。(与CNN/SSRS类似，80%的人表示他们将继续支持他。)
同样，你应该永远要小心像爱默生这样的民意调查询问美国人是否有什么因素使他们更有可能或更不可能以某种方式投票。受访者经常不要从字面上理解这些问题;相反，他们用它们来代表他们是同意还是不同意被问到的事情。
事实上，超过四分之三告诉爱默生定罪将使他们“不太可能”投票给特朗普的人在另一个问题上告诉民调机构，他们已经投票给拜登。相比之下，只有11%的特朗普选民表示有罪判决会降低他们投票给他的可能性——因此对他实际支持率的潜在影响比最初看起来要小得多。
其他民调也支持这一理论，即这一定罪不会导致大量人倒戈拜登。我上面引用的那些赛马民调?它们实际上并没有显示许多特朗普选民将投票转向拜登。相反，特朗普失去的大部分支持都进入了尚未决定的一栏或一个未命名的假设“其他人”:
在考虑定罪后，特朗普平均失去6个百分点的支持——但拜登仅获得1个百分点。“其他人”或“未决定”获得5分。这与以下想法一致:这一定罪将使一些特朗普支持者对为他拉杠杆的想法感到不安，因此他们将在一段时间内不再认为自己是特朗普的支持者——但他们中的大多数人不会走得太远，不会投票给拜登。
而这反过来可能表明，特朗普支持率的下降将是短暂的。当然，在这次定罪后抛弃他的特朗普支持者可能会放弃投票或投票给第三方候选人。但预测未来行为的最佳指标是过去的行为，因此他们最终也很有可能克服自己的不适并回到特朗普一边，特别是考虑到距离选举日还有五个月的时间——特朗普有足够的时间来讲述一个故事，帮助选民克服投票给一名被定罪的重罪犯的任何障碍。
我们不需要为此寻找先例。2016年10月，特朗普的竞选活动被臭名昭著的“《走进好莱坞》”录像带搞得措手不及，特朗普在录像带中吹嘘自己性侵女性。当时的民意调查显示这盘磁带一些共和党人对支持特朗普感到不安，和他的国家支持538的平均投票率当时下跌了约1个百分点。但特朗普的支持率很快回升:在录像带发布后的三周内，他的民调支持率比发布前更高。
尽管如此，即使大多数特朗普叛逃者只是转向未决并最终回归阵营，这也并不意味着定罪对竞选不会产生任何影响。对拜登来说，平均1个百分点的优势并不算什么——在一场势均力敌的竞选中(2024年的选举正在形成这种局面)，这可能意味着输赢的区别。但不要夸大定罪的影响也很重要。如果封口费审判最终决定了总统竞选，这很可能是因为竞选活动无论如何都是一场英寸游戏。
How Trump’s guilty verdict will impact the 2024 presidential election
Scandalshaveswirledaroundformer President Donald Trumpsince hisfirst presidential campaignin 2016. But as of Thursday — having been found guilty on all counts in his New York hush-money case — he is now officially a convicted felon. Could that fact cut through all the other headlines and be a game-changer for the 2024 election?
At first glance, there's some evidence from polls that this conviction will meaningfully erode Trump's support. AnApril survey from CNN/SSRSfound that, while 76 percent of Trump supporters said they would support Trump regardless, 24 percent said they "might reconsider" their support for him if he was convicted. And aMay poll from Emerson Collegefound that 25 percent of voters said a guilty verdict in New York would make them less likely to vote for Trump.
Afew pollstershave also askedtwo versionsof the standard "who will you vote for?" questionin recent weeks: one straightforward one, and one that asked respondents who they would vote for if Trump was convicted in the New York case. On average, Trump went from leading by 1 percentage point in these polls without considering the conviction to trailing by 6 points with it.
But Democrats would be wise to not get too excited about these numbers. Take another look at the wording of the CNN/SSRS poll: Twenty-four percent of Trump supporters said they "might reconsider" their vote. That's not the same as "will definitely change" their vote! In light of this conviction, many Trump supporters might simply have a crisis of confidence about their vote without outright switching to President Joe Biden.
That's basically whatanother poll from ABC News/Ipsosfound. Like CNN/SSRS, they asked Trump supporters what they would do if Trump was convicted in the New York case, but they provided options for both "reconsider" and "no longer support." Sixteen percent said they would reconsider supporting Trump, but only 4 percent said they would no longer support him. (Similar to CNN/SSRS, 80 percent said they would continue to support him.)
Likewise, you shouldalways be careful with polls like Emerson'sthat ask Americans whether something makes them more or less likely to vote a certain way. Respondents oftendon't take these questions literally; instead, they use them as a proxy for whether they approve or disapprove of the thing being asked about.
Indeed, over three-quarters of those who told Emerson a conviction would make them "less likely" to vote for Trump had told the pollster on a different question that they were already voting for Biden. By contrast, only 11 percent of Trump voters said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for him — so the potential impact on his actual support is much smaller than it initially appears.
Other polls also support the theory that this conviction won't cause mass defections to Biden. Those horse-race polls I cited above? They don't actually show many Trump voters switching their vote to Biden. Instead, most of the support Trump loses goes into the undecided column or to an unnamed, hypothetical "someone else":
On average, Trump loses 6 points of support after a conviction is taken into account — but Biden gains only 1 point. "Someone else" or undecided gains 5 points. That's consistent with the idea that this conviction will make some Trump supporters squeamish about the idea of pulling the lever for him, so they will stop identifying as Trump supporters for a while — but most of them won't go so far as to vote for Biden.
And that, in turn, could indicate that this drop in Trump's support will be short-lived. Sure, Trump supporters who abandon him after this conviction could conceivably abstain from voting or vote for a third-party candidate. But the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so there's also a good chance that they will eventually get over their discomfort and return to Trump's side, especially considering there are still five months left until Election Day — plenty of time for Trump to spin a narrative that helps voters overcome any hangups about voting for a convicted felon.
We don't need to search far for a precedent for this. In October 2016, Trump's campaign was blindsided by the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, on which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Polls at the time showed that the tape madesome Republicans uncomfortable about supporting Trump, and his national support in538's polling averageat the time fell by about 1 point. But Trump's support quickly recovered: Within three weeks of the tape's release, he was polling better than he was before it.
That said, even if most Trump defectors only switch to undecided and eventually return to the fold, that doesn't mean the conviction will have zero effect on the race. That average 1-point gain for Biden isn't nothing — in a close race (which 2024 is shaping up to be), it could mean the difference between winning and losing. But it's also important not to overstate the conviction's impact. If the hush-money trial ends up determining the presidential race, it will likely be because the campaign was a game of inches anyway.
