Poll: Majority Want Trump Off Ballot If Convicted

AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez

A comprehensive set of new polls from NewsNation and Decision Desk HQ holds both good news and bad news for former President and current GOP primary leader Donald Trump. The good news is that if he was worried about being overtaken by one of his Republican challengers for the nomination, he can likely put those concerns aside and focus on the general election. The poll found that Trump still holds a fifty-point lead among primary voters with 60%, dominating Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who came in at 11% and 10% respectively. In other words, if everyone but one of those candidates dropped out and every one of their supporters coalesced around the remaining challenger, Trump would still have a twenty-point lead.

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Former President Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination and holds a 50-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, according to a new NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll released Monday.

Trump was the top choice for 60% of Republicans surveyed, followed by DeSantis at 11%, Haley (10%), biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (6%) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3%.

The former president’s lead is even wider on the most important issue for voters. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans (64%) think Trump is the best candidate for the economy versus 8% who feel the same way about DeSantis and 7.5% who prefer Haley.

One NewsNation analyst described the results as demonstrating that Trump’s support among Republicans nationally is “not only very broad but very deep.” This includes respondents’ answers to individual policy questions, where Trump was also preferred by the majority in every category.

Those numbers are all national figures, but it doesn’t appear that Trump has much to worry about in the individual early states either. He’s still up by more than 35 in Iowa. He leads by 27 in New Hampshire and by 35 in Haley’s home state of South Carolina. He’s even walloping DeSantis by more than 40 in Florida.

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The “not-so-good” news I mentioned above deals with voters’ potential concerns over the ongoing criminal and civil prosecutions (or persecutions if you prefer) against Donald Trump. A majority of all voters said that they believe Trump should be disqualified and removed from the ballot if he is convicted on any of the charges he faces. But even that aspect comes with a significant caveat when you look at the difference between GOP primary voters and the general public.

More than 70% of GOP respondents said a conviction in “one or more” of the former president’s criminal cases would not impact their vote. Roughly 17% said it would affect their vote and 10% were not sure…

Trump’s legal troubles may not impact his expected success in the Republican primaries but could be troublesome for the former president in the general election, the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll suggests. More than one-third of independents surveyed said a conviction would impact their vote, compared to 52% who said it wouldn’t.

It remains to be seen whether Trump’s legal woes will supersede Americans’ broader discontent with the way things are going. Nearly 70% of respondents think the country is on the wrong track, including 88% of Republicans, 73% of independents, and 45% of Democrats.

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Having more than half of the country declaring that a conviction at trial should be a reason to remove Trump from the ballot might be disturbing at first glance. But those are probably the same slightly more than half who say they will refuse to vote for Trump under any circumstances. (Even in the polls where Trump leads Biden, he leads with a plurality. The difference will be made up in the margins.) The liberals engineering these trials chose their venues, judges, and prosecutors carefully. They may still ring up a conviction or two. And even if those convictions don’t hold up under appeal (which they likely won’t) it won’t matter. The mission will have already either been accomplished or failed.

Back in the late spring and early summer, we were cautioning everyone to not get too far out over their skis when it came to Trump. There was a long path to run and many things might happen over the course of the rest of the year. Well, the time passed and many interesting things did indeed happen. But none of it ever put a serious dent in Trump’s numbers. His primary lead simply looks insurmountable at this point. It appears possible that a conviction in one of these show trials could impact him in the general election (where he’s currently holding a slender lead in the polls also), but it wouldn’t sink his primary aspirations.

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David Strom 10:30 AM | November 11, 2024
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David Strom 2:30 PM | November 10, 2024
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