46 percent say Trump did something illegal in hush money case: Poll
Nearly half of registered American voters say former President Trump did something illegal in his ongoing hush money criminal trial in New York, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The Quinnipiac University national poll, conducted Thursday through Monday, shows 46 percent of registered voters say they think Trump did something illegal, while 29 percent say they think Trump did something unethical but not illegal. Another 21 percent say they think Trump did nothing wrong.
The poll comes as the trial against the former president begins to wrap up in New York — about a month after it first began. Closing arguments will take place next week.
Voters have similar positions today on whether Trump did anything illegal in this case as they did in a poll conducted at the very start of the trial. At the time, 46 percent of registered voters also said they thought Trump did something illegal.
Those who skipped the question, or said they didn’t know, declined slightly over the past month, from 8 percent to 4 percent. At the same time, those who say Trump did something unethical but not illegal ticked up slightly from 27 percent to 29 percent — although the change remained within the margin of error. Those who say Trump did nothing wrong increased from 18 percent to 21 percent.
When asked whether a conviction would change their vote, 6 percent of Trump voters said they would be less likely to vote for him, while 24 percent of Trump voters said they would be more likely to vote for him. Sixty-eight percent of Trump voters say it would not make a difference to their vote.
"Will a conviction sink Trump? The vast majority of his supporters say it would be no big deal. But in an extremely tight race, that 6 percent could tip the balance," Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.
The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen made to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election to stay quiet about her alleged affair with Trump from 2006, which he denies.
Trump pleaded not guilty and has insisted the records were truthful and that he was not personally involved in the scheme.
In the introduction to the survey question, the trial was briefly described to the respondent as “the New York City criminal trial against former President Donald Trump in connection to charges of falsifying business records, including a hush money payment to an adult film actress.”
The poll included 1,374 self-identified registered voters, and it has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.