CBS News Poll: Views of Trump unchanged following guilty verdict
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Trump Tower, Friday, May 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
A new CBS News poll shows that opinions of former President Trump are largely unchanged after he was found guilty at his “hush money” trial in New York City.
Thursday, a jury in Manhattan found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to making a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in order to keep allegations that they’d had an affair out of the news prior to the 2016 presidential election. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced July 11.
The CBS News/YouGov poll showed just over half those asked thought Trump was guilty before the verdict, and now just over half think the jury reached the right verdict and that the trial was fair.
The poll shows 56% thought he received a fair trial, while 44% said he did not.
The numbers varied widely among Democrats and Republicans. 96% of Democrats said the trial was fair, while 86% of Republicans said it wasn’t. The split among independents was 54% fair versus 46% unfair.
The split was similar when people were asked whether the jury reached the correct verdicts. 96% of Democrats said yes, 56% of independents agreed, while 82% said the jury got the verdicts wrong.
Now that Trump has been convicted, 51% said he is not fit to be president, while 40% said that he is. 8% are unsure.
On whether he should serve prison time, 45% said that he should not, compared to 38% who said he should. 17% said they were unsure.
The CBS News/YouGov survey was based on a nationally representative sample of 989 adults who were recontacted on May 30-June 1, 2024, after the conclusion of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York City, following an initial survey of 1,402 adults conducted on May 14-21, 2024, before a verdict was reached. The margin of error for the total sample in the recontact survey is ±5.2 points.
