Days after former President Donald Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury, a poll in a 2024 battleground state shows that voters still favor the former president.
In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted between May 30 to June 5, the former president had a 5-point edge over President Joe Biden in Georgia. About 49 percent backed President Trump, compared with 44 percent who supported President Biden in the Peach State.
The former president was found guilty of falsifying business records on May 30 after a roughly six-week trial in New York City. The Quinnipiac survey was the first to poll voters in a swing state after the verdict was handed down.
Pollsters found that about 94 percent of Republicans back President Trump in the state, while 93 percent of Democrats back President Biden. Independents were split between the two, with 45 percent supporting both, it found.
In a hypothetical matchup that includes independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent candidate Cornell West, Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, President Trump’s support over President Biden will grow by 1 percentage point, according to Quinnipiac.
“Trump takes a narrow lead in the head-to-head horse race against Biden. Put four other ‘horses’ on the track, including the new Libertarian candidate, and he inches further ahead,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a news release. It’s not clear why Mr. Malloy would refer to a 5-point lead as “narrow.”
Mr. Kennedy garnered about 10 percent of Democrats’ support in the six-person contest, while he only 5 percent of Republicans’ support in such a matchup, it found.
Georgia can be considered a critical state in the November election, as election officials declared President Biden the victor in 2020. But President Trump won the Peach State during the 2016 contest.
The state currently has two Democrat U.S. senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and a Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
Voters’ views on the Trump conviction differ along party lines in the state, according to the Quinnipiac survey. About 96 percent of Democrats agreed with the conviction, while 1 percent did not agree, and among Republicans, 86 percent disagreed with the conviction and 10 percent agreed.
Pollsters found that about 52 percent of independents agreed with the decision and 42 percent disagreed.
“In a key state that went for Biden in 2020, half of voters agree with the guilty verdict that made Trump the first president to be convicted of a felony, but Trump still has the advantage in the 2024 race,” Mr. Malloy added in the release.
Meanwhile, some 22 percent of voters stated they are less likely to vote for President Trump after the verdict, and 23 percent said it’s more likely they will vote for him. About 54 percent said it doesn’t change their vote.
After the conviction, President Trump told a press conference that he would appeal the verdict and also called on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene before he is sentenced. A judge overseeing the case set a sentencing date for July 11.
In Georgia, President Trump faces election-related charges in Fulton County, but that case was put on pause by the state’s Court of Appeals until at least March 2025. The appeals court said it would consider a bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case against the former president and more than a dozen others.
Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, previously signaled he would address some pre-trial legal issues during the appeal, but Wednesday’s order prevents him from taking any action.
The appeal is likely to take several months to resolve. The court earlier this week scheduled an oral argument in October.
Prosecutors have also signaled they will appeal a prior ruling that tossed out some criminal counts in the indictment.
President Trump and the 14 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other charges stemming from what prosecutors allege was a scheme to overturn the 2020 election’s results. In January, a co-defendant filed a motion that accused Ms. Willis of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with her special prosecutor, who was in March ordered by the judge to step down.
They have said that Ms. Willis’s romantic relationship with the former special prosecutor posed a conflict of interest, which she has denied.
The Quinnipiac poll included 1,203 self-identified registered voters with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
Reuters contributed to this report.
