Which of these developments has the potential to meaningful impact the behavior of up-for-grab voters in the battleground states:
A. President Biden’s extraordinary off-camera remarks at a Connecticut fundraiser openly criticizing “convicted felon” Donald Trump for his conduct and statements?
B. Hunter Biden’s first criminal trial in Delaware?
C. Merrick Garland’s role in dealing with special counsel probes of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Hunter Biden, as detailed in this Wall Street Journal exclusive?
D. Joe Biden’s planned immigration policy announcement today?
E. Antony Fauci’s Monday congressional testimony?
F. The latest Biden administration actions related to Israel and Ukraine, as expertly detailed in David Sanger’s essential reading New York Times piece?
I bring great humility to the pundit practice of trying to draw a straight (or, even, jagged) line between events involving political elites or geopolitics and how citizen/voters will react.
It’s easy to pontificate, presume, and postulate, even from (especially from…) Chevy Chase or the Upper West Side.
Turn on cable TV at almost any point on any given day, and someone or someones will be telling you how suburban parents outside Detroit are going to feel about a dust-up between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tony Fauci over whether he should be considered a doctor.
For what is perhaps the most important example right now, beyond the outpouring of money headed to Mar-a-Lago bank accounts from both the grassroots (staggering tens of millions in May and from billionaires previously hostile to Trump), what do we know about how the voters who will decide the election feel about Trump’s conviction?
For the Blues, Heather Cox Richardson thinks she knows:
The fallout from the New York jury’s conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felony counts last Thursday, May 30, continues. Trump’s team continues to insist that the guilty verdict will help him, but that’s nonsensical on its face: if guilty verdicts are so helpful, why has he moved heaven and earth to keep the many other cases against him from going to trial? And why are he and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) calling for the Supreme Court to overturn the convictions?
As political consultant Stuart Stevens put it: “I worked in five presidential races and helped elect Republican governors or Senators in over half the country. I have never heard anything more transparently desperate than a party trying to spin that there is some non-MAGA pool of voters who can't wait to vote for a convicted felon.”
With a tad more caution than Richardson, the Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn, speaking for the Reds, thinks he knows also:
A few weeks ago the safe bet was that a felony conviction would cost Mr. Trump votes. In a tight election, that loss could prove fatal. But after the voters’ experience with the Steele dossier and the Hunter Biden laptop, the third time around may not be the charm…
[B]y trying to lock up their political opponent, the Democrats may have finally overplayed their hand.
The Richardson-McGurn combo reminds me of one of my father’s best jokes: Only two people understand how the international economic system works – and unfortunately they disagree.
There have been a handful of national polls trying to divine how the guilty verdict has impacted the public, but those are not useful in seeking insight into battleground state shifts.
Please join me this afternoon at 4pm ET for a special 2WAY event over Zoom with the results of another episode of “The Undecideds,” during which we will review a focus group I conducted Sunday night with voters from Georgia and North Carolina to talk about the verdict, along with a new poll of the same type of voters from those states.
You can add the event to your calendar here.
This event is free and open to the all, so feel free to share the information.
The participants in both the focus group and the poll were so-called "double haters" -- voters who are unhappy with the prospect of choosing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
The nuanced, commonsense views expressed by the focus group participants stand in contrast to media speculation about the impact of Trump’s conviction on the electorate. The group’s straightforward discussion and thoughtful analysis serve as a preview of what voters nationally will think about as they work through the implications of the conviction and then when they cast their ballots.
“The Undecideds” is an unprecedented 2024 battleground state project from the interactive video platform 2WAY and research firm Wick Insights. The project brings together the most critical voters in the country, drawn exclusively from the seven states that will pick the winner of the next American presidential election.
Through a unique combination of synchronized polling and focus groups, viewers will meet, learn about, and hear from fellow citizens in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona, and watch as they grapple with indecision about whom to support for president – or whether to vote at all.
Below are focus group highlights from seven voters in North Carolina and Georgia reacting to Trump's conviction in the New York criminal case, along with some results from a poll of the same demographic group, including what they most dislike about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, whether they think Trump was guilty, and the implications of a prison sentence.
Among the sentiments expressed by participants in the focus group, recorded Sunday night:
* Five of the seven participants said they thought Trump would still win the election, with the other two being unsure. No participant thought Biden would win.
* None of the participants thought Trump’s conviction would affect their vote either way.
* While the participants thought that the timing of the trial was politically motivated, they did not think the judge was biased, nor did they think Trump was treated unfairly.
* The participants did not have a clear understanding of the charges against Trump, but also did not think the crimes involved were serious.
* With one exception, the participants all thought Trump should not, and will not, drop out due to his conviction.
The full recorded focus group, about forty minutes long, will debut on the Zoom tonight, followed by a discussion that includes political experts and questions and comments from the 2WAY community; here are some highlights that you can watch now – and reporters and others can feel free to post them on social media, embed them in newsletters, or share them in any way you wish:
Clip 1: THE UNDECIDEDS: WILL TRUMP’S CONVICTION CHANGE HOW YOU’LL VOTE AND THE OVERALL OUTCOME?
Description: The double-haters agree that the Trump trial’s verdict will not change how they vote, and most of them predict Trump will win the election.
Clip 2: THE UNDECIDEDS: WAS TRUMP TREATED FAIRLY IN HIS TRIAL?
Description: The double-haters agree that Trump was treated fairly in his trial, but most of them think the timing of the trial was influenced by politics.
Clip 3: THE UNDECIDEDS: WAS TRUMP GUILTY? WAS THE JUDGE BIASED?
Description: The double-haters generally agree that Trump was guilty, technically, of a crime and that the judge was not biased.
Clip 4: THE UNDECIDEDS: WAS THE PROSECUTION OF TRUMP POLITICALLY MOTIVATED?
Description: The double-haters agree that the timing of Trump’s trial was politically motivated, and they do not think he should drop out.
Clip 5: THE UNDECIDEDS: TRUMP WAS CONVICTED, BUT WHAT WAS THE CRIME?
Description: The double-haters say they don’t have a good understanding of the charges against Trump, but don’t view the crimes involved as serious.
Clip 6: THE UNDECIDEDS: WHAT ISSUES MATTER TO YOU?
Description: The double-haters discuss how inflation and taxes are major issues for them in the election.
We will also review the full poll tonight on the Zoom with my partner on “The Undecideds,” David Burrell of Wick Insights, but/and you can read some of the initial results and analysis here:
I strongly recommend you watch these focus group highlight clips, read the poll, and join the 2WAY this evening.
I feel fortunate to have been able to convene with this group and hear from them.
I don’t know precisely how the Trump verdict is going to play out with key voters in the battleground states over the next several months, but I believe I know a heck of a lot more about it after listening to this group.
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One final data point, especially for those inside a Blue bubble.
Here is an email, shared with permission, I got from Wide World of News reader Katie Reeves of the Milwaukee Metroplex, whose voice is invaluable for understanding the nuances of what is happening now, and what is likely to happen:
Sorry this one is so long. I tried to edit, but this is what I ended up with.
A few weeks ago one of you readers shared a conversation he had with his wife regarding whether or not Trump supporters could be "good people". She said no, while he thought they could be but are just misguided. My mind has returned to his words many times since then. One of the first times was days later, as I attended a Celebration of Life event for a very good friend of my father-in-law. The deceased was a retired appliance repairman, who was quite the character and very well loved. Many people stood up to share their stories of Jim, including an older gentleman wearing a MAGA hat. He told of raising their kids together, fishing trips, and late night karaoke. He wore the hat, but I couldn't help but wonder how many other attendees, these lovely people sharing their memories and lending support to the grieving family, were Trump supporters.
Your reader's words returned to me a week or so later, while attending a Memorial Day ceremony. Looking around, I saw a pretty good representation of our city: some were white, some were black, and some Latino, and there were a few families that appeared to be part of one of our local Native American tribes. A young gentleman sitting near me had purple hair and a nose ring, and gave some visual clues that he may be part of the LGBTQ community. I watched a Viet Nam veteran use his cane to stand erect in order to salute the flag for the entirety of the national anthem. I watched a young, African American active duty sailor carry the Naval flag, as her family filmed and cheered, just bursting with pride. And I observed a young dad, sitting just in front of me, give his sweatshirt to his young daughter, leaving him in short sleeves in 55 degree weather so that she could double up and therefore be able to stick it out, as it was obviously very important to him that she attend with him.
During all this I thought about your reader and his wife, and so many others. I thought about a world where someone could look at all these people here, attending for the same cause, honoring our fallen soldiers, and make the determination that they are "good" or "bad", intelligent or misguided, based solely on who they vote for or what cause they support.
Then we fast forward to the latest Trump trial. I was following it pretty closely until about noon the day following the verdict. Nothing has exemplified the fact that our nation lives in two separate worlds quite like this trial. My choices for coverage were rage-porn on the right or willful ignorance mixed with gleeful elation on the left. (Your newsletter and 2Way being the exception, of course.) It was as if two completely different trials had taken place. I couldn't watch any of it, and it sickened me.
I thought the quote from Maureen Dowd that you included in yesterday's newsletter summed up how a very, very large swath of Americans feel about the trial. "A dozen Americans had finally sliced through Trump’s reality distortion field and said, simply, “'You’re lying and cheating and it’s not right.' Even though the case was a stretch and not the strongest one against Trump, there was something refreshing about the jury doing what no one else around Trump has been able to do."
It appears to me that she is saying either (a) this is a makeup call. (I thought Michael Smerconish's comparison on your 2Way to OJ's Vegas robbery verdict was very apt), or (b) Trump is a horrible, evil human and deserves to be put away. Makeup calls should be saved for the NBA, and in America, we don't convict people for "being bad". That is not how our justice system works and I find it appalling that it seems to be acceptable to ignore that truth. Add to that the obvious election interference that this trial perpetrated. This email is too long already, so I won't line item all the ways that trial has disenfranchised roughly half of America's voters, by hampering their chosen candidate's ability to share his vision with those still undecided.
I was quite surprised to read that Maureen Dowd has a MAGA sibling. Because the only way you can justify this logic is if you view those with differing views as "other", and too evil or too stupid to be considered worthy of equal consideration.
I know that I'm portraying this as Side D picking on Side R, but I am well aware that the disgust, derision, and intentional blind spots go both ways. And I find it all incredibly depressing. I was late to the Twitter party but have already abandoned it, as I really don't need more extreme versions of my views fed back to me. I fail to see how our country moves forward, no matter how November turns out. At this point I'm hoping that 2028 brings better things.
Katie Reeves
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See you this afternoon at 4pm ET for a conversation like no other.
Mark
