Former President Donald Trump was recently found guilty on 34 felony counts in a hush money case. SurveyMonkey partnered with The 19th News to ask over 5,800 Americans how they feel about the case and what it means for their vote in the 2024 Presidential election. The new poll, conducted May 30-31, 2024, finds that:
Most Americans have heard about the verdict in the hush money trial, with many following the trial
- At the time we reached them, 81% of Americans had heard about the verdict.
- Two-thirds (67%) followed the trial, including 22% who followed it closely. Only 5% had not heard about the case at all.
- Three-quarters (75%) feel that they understand the charges in the case very or somewhat well.
Feelings on the verdict are mixed, and split along party lines
- About half of Americans (49%) agree with the verdict and 34% disagree, with strong feelings on both sides; 38% strongly agree and 27% strongly disagree, while only 11% somewhat agree and 7% somewhat disagree (15% don’t know whether they agree or disagree with the verdict).
- While most Americans think Trump’s actions were morally wrong (67%), only slightly more than half (57%) agree that Trump’s actions were a crime, and only about half (49%) agree with the verdict.
- Half (49%) think the trial was fair, while 35% think it was not fair (14% didn’t know).
The verdict appears to have little net impact on planned votes
- Nearly one in ten (9%) note a change in their planned 2024 Presidential vote after hearing about the outcome of the trial, but the changes seem to cancel each other out, as the percentage voting for each candidate remains the same.
- Overall, 3% changed their vote to Trump, and 3% changed their vote away from Trump; 1% changed their vote to Biden, and 1% changed their vote away from Biden; 5% noted some other change (voting for another candidate, undecided, or not voting).
We used the counterfactual format to ask about vote change: rather than asking whether voters were more or less likely to vote for Trump after hearing about the verdict, we asked who they are currently planning to vote for and who they were planning to vote for before they heard about the verdict, then compared the two responses. We think this method is more accurate in estimating actual changes in voting intention.
Read more about our polling methodology here.
Click through all the results in the interactive toplines below:
