Former President Donald Trump has surged ahead in recent polls ahead of his June 27 debate with incumbent President Joe Biden, with Trump registering at 46.6 percent compared to Biden’s 45.1 percent, according to the latest average of national polls compiled by RealClearPolling.com.
Trump has led the national polling average since Sept. 2023, a worrying sign for Biden’s reelection prospects after Trumps 49-state rout of the Republican presidential primaries over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The Trump rally comes almost a month after his May 30 conviction by a New York City jury of federal campaign finance violations that New York took it upon itself to prosecute, an issue that will undoubtedly loom front and center on the debate stage.
In the most recent Quinnipiac poll of 1,405 registered voters surveyed June 20 to June 24, Trump’s lead came in at 49 percent to 45 percent. The questions around the New York City conviction indicate a hardening of attitudes — one might say indifference — to the prosecutions of Trump.
48 percent said the conviction was not so important or not important at all to their choice of president, while 39 percent said it was extremely important or very important. A bare 11 percent said it was somewhat important.
On the question of imprisonment, 55 percent said Trump should not be imprisoned over the New York City conviction, with just 40 percent saying he should — indicating the fair-minded nature of the American people who do not wish to see the leader of the opposition party in an election year put in jail. That includes 59 percent of independents who opposed imprisonment and 17 percent of Democrats who also opposed it. 92 percent of Republicans unsurprisingly opposed it.
But when you get to other demographics, constituencies that tend to support Biden and Democrats are well divided. Among White college graduates, which favor Biden 60 percent to 37 percent, 52 percent oppose imprisonment, while only 44 percent support it. Among Hispanics, which favor Biden 51 percent to 41 percent, 47 percent are opposed to imprisonment, and 49 percent support it. Among Blacks, 25 percent are opposed to imprisonment while 69 percent support it.
Those are major fractures in Democratic Party coalition, which the June 27 debate—the earliest general election debate in U.S. presidential history—is designed to repair. Expect some of the first few questions to deal exclusively with this reality in a bid to drive up Trump’s negatives.
Unfortunately, based on those numbers, Biden and Democrats have a perverse incentive to popularize Trump’s prosecution, while Biden will use his own son’s conviction on federal gun charges in an attempt to show there is supposedly no political bias in federal prosecutions. Trump will counter that his own conviction is being appealed and eventually will be overturned since New York has no power to enforce federal election laws.
Throwing Trump in jail would not improve Biden’s prospects at this point: 19 percent of independents said it would make them more likely to vote for Trump, compared to 14 percent who said less likely, and 66 percent saying no difference. 33 percent of Republicans said it would make them more likely, with only 5 percent saying less likely and 60 percent saying no difference.
Among Trump supporters, interestingly, 59 percent said a prison sentence would make no difference in their vote, 36 percent said it would make them even more likely to vote for Trump, and only 4 percent said less likely.
It could be that for most voters, the conviction simply confirmed or strengthened attitudes already held about Trump, a known quantity as a former president.
So, both candidates will attempt to make hay out of the conviction, shoring up their respective constituencies, with the prize on the middle those who think the conviction might be important but are uncertain. Biden’s seeming only choice is to make prosecuting and jailing Trump more popular, as any more softening of those attitudes appears to favor Trump.
Once the debate has utilized a sufficient amount of time on the question of the conviction — assuming CNN doesn’t nuke that segment altogether given its counterproductive nature to its goal of helping Biden — then there are actual issues facing the American people that the next president will have to address.
There, Trump should highlight how consumer inflation has outpaced personal incomes since 2021, the opposite of what occurred in his administration. He will highlight the influx of millions of illegal immigrants to the U.S., the most ever, rising violent crime and concerns that Biden is leading the U.S. into World War III with Russia as the war in Ukraine continues to escalate.
Biden should in turn highlight the relatively low (but rising) 4 percent unemployment rate. He will tout the Inflation Reduction Act and the push to a green economy and a carbon-free future. He will remind female voters that the Supreme Court that Trump appointed overturned Roe v. Wade, kicking the question of abortion restrictions to states. And he will talk about the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol following Trump’s speech he gave on the National Mall that way challenging to results of the 2020 election, and therefore continue his theme over perceived concerns over the preservation of democracy in the U.S.
But the conviction will continue to loom over the debate and the wider presidential race, with sentencing scheduled for Trump on July 11. Political prosecutions remain pretty unpopular—thankfully—and his own trials may indeed be helping him gain a significant advantage in the race, contrary to partisan wisdom that locking up your opponents is the way to go. In all likelihood, a single night’s debate will not change that attitude.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
