The American people are waiting with bated breath for the verdict in former President Donald Trump’s New York City trial on an alleged campaign finance violation being prosecuted locally as a bookkeeping fraud case.
The jury deliberations come as Trump has continued to lead both national and state polls in his bid to unseat incumbent President Joe Biden. Nationally, Trump has been ahead in the average of polls compiled by RealClearPolling.com since Sept. 2023, and continues to lead by a point, 47.6 percent to 46.7 percent.
The implication is that the national popular vote is in play, which Republicans in recent elections have not needed in order to win majorities in the Electoral College, with 2000 and 2016 as the most recent examples of a Republican losing the popular vote but winning the election. 2004 stands as the last time a Republican received the most votes overall in the general election.
At this point in the race in 2020, Biden was ahead by more than 5 points nationally.
Looking at the Electoral College, Trump is also running far ahead of where he was in either 2016 or 2020 at this point in the race—in those cases he was running from behind.
In Arizona, Trump leads the RealClearPolling average against Biden 47.8 percent to 43.8 percent.
In Nevada, Trump is ahead 48 percent to 42.6 percent.
In Wisconsin, Trump leads ever so slightly 47.4 percent to 47.3 percent.
In Michigan, Trump is also in the lead, 47.1 percent to 46.6 percent.
In Pennsylvania, Trump is ahead 47.8 percent to 45.5 percent.
In North Carolina, Trump is ahead 47.5 percent to 42.7 percent.
And in Georgia, Trump leads 48.4 percent to 43.6 percent.
It is in this context that the attempts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, the 2016-2019 top secret surveillance of the Trump campaign and administration and the Trump trials today, whether in New York City, Washington, D.C., Miami, Fla. and Fulton County, Ga. must be understood. It is to use the force of government to achieve what Biden and Trump’s other opponents could not politically on their own.
But it is a fatal error, I believe, for in so doing, by weaponizing government to silence political opponents—unquestionably a tyrannical endeavor—has attracted support for Trump’s cause in ways that might not have manifested themselves had he been left alone. It has exposed practices by an administrative state in Washington, D.C., now that they are exposed, eventually will be countered, if not by Trump, then by his successors.
Undoubtedly, an acquittal in New York would help Trump since it would show the case should have never been brought in the first place to most observers, but a guilty verdict would help him even more in exposing a corruption so deep it penetrates the body politic at the prosecutorial and jury pool level, a partisanship so fierce it demands censorship, surveillance and criminalizing opposition as a moral imperative.
If he is jailed, even more so, as supporters will begin hanging posters and billboards that proclaim “FREE TRUMP!” and hold candlelight vigils.
In truth, it might be too late to save Biden politically, thanks to inflation and foreign policy catastrophes, no matter how the trials turn out, although the President’s incumbency advantage should still not be underestimated. Trump’s opponents mean to inflict political harm through political and legal force, but the risk always was that it would backfire.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.