Just over a third of American voters believe former president Donald Trump acted illegally in the hush-money case brought against him by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, according to a new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey.
The poll finds that 35 percent of respondents think Trump did something illegal, while 31 percent think his behavior for which he was indicted was unethical but not illegal. Another 14 percent say the former president did nothing wrong.
With political affiliation taken into account, Republicans are much less likely to believe Trump committed a crime compared to Democrats and independents. Less than 10 percent of Republicans say he committed a crime, whereas about 60 percent of Democrats and roughly 30 percent of independents say the same.
The findings come as Trump began his criminal trial with jury selection on Monday, the first of four criminal indictments. The case relates to his alleged attempt to pay $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to cover up a sexual encounter he had with the porn star years ago. The 34-count indictment, filed by Bragg last April, accuses Trump of falsifying business records to hide the payment made by his former lawyer and now enemy, Michael Cohen.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied any wrongdoing.
Notably, the hush-money case is the one in which Americans are least convinced that Trump committed a crime when allegedly paying Daniels. About half of respondents believe he did something illegal in the three other pending criminal cases against him, according to the new AP-NORC poll.
Moreover, the majority of respondents are skeptical the presumptive Republican nominee will get a fair trial. Only about 30 percent say the prosecutors are treating Trump fairly, and only about 20 percent say confidently that the Manhattan judge and jury can be fair and impartial in a case that Trump argues is politically motivated.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Trump said Monday outside the New York City courthouse. “This is political persecution . . . it’s a case that should have never been brought.”
“This is an assault on America and that’s why I’m very proud to be here,” he added.
Despite lingering doubts about the right to a fair trial, half of Americans say Trump would be unfit to serve as president if he were to be convicted by the end of the trial. Twenty-nine percent say he would be fit, and another 21 percent say they don’t know enough to have an opinion on the matter.
Almost 60 percent of Republicans consider Trump to be fit for president even if he were to be convicted. By contrast, about 80 percent of Democrats and roughly half of independents say the opposite.
A verdict in the case will likely be handed down within the next six weeks. The jury-selection process, having begun Monday, will take at least a week or two for the prosecution and defense to narrow down hundreds of prospective jurors to the required twelve in a lower Manhattan court. No jurors were selected on the first day of trial.
Trump’s legal team faces the challenge of finding unbiased jurors in Manhattan, a Democratic stronghold where 87 percent of the vote went to Joe Biden in 2020. Judge Juan Merchan approved a list of 42 questions that don’t ask prospective jurors about their party affiliation, despite Trump lawyers pushing for more politically oriented questions in the months ahead of the trial.
“President Trump is running for president,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said in a February hearing. “Whether we like it or not, a juror’s political affiliation has to be something that we know and understand.”
At the hearing, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that prospective jurors’ opinions of Trump, regardless of whether they’re favorable or unfavorable, would not automatically disqualify them from being considered.
“They can like him or dislike him,” Steinglass said. “They can still be fair jurors so long as that is not going to affect their ability to fairly judge the evidence in the case.”
Potential political bias also extends to Judge Merchan. On Monday, he refused to recuse himself from the case after Trump attorneys requested so on the grounds that his daughter works as a Democratic political consultant. Merchan argued the defense did not present evidence of his bias and ultimately dismissed the request.