(The Hill) – Nearly a quarter of former President Trump’s supporters say he should not be the Republican nominee for president in 2024 if he is convicted of a crime, according to a new survey.
The poll, published Tuesday from The New York Times/Siena College, found 24 percent of respondents who said they would vote for Trump in the upcoming election also say he should not be the nominee if found guilty in one of his legal trials, “even if he has won the most votes.”
The former president has used his online platform, Truth Social, to attack legal officials overseeing his cases and encouraged his fan base to do the same. Though he is leading the GOP primary field by far, he has held that the prosecution comes from the left and is an attempt to ruin his campaign and chances for reelection.
While some supporters say the outcome in court will affect their decision to support him, a majority of his supporters say it won’t matter.
Seventy percent of Trump supporters believe the former president should still be the nominee. regardless of a potential conviction.
The results remain mostly the same when examining respondents’ voting choices in 2020. Twenty-two percent said he would lose their support, while 70 percent said he wouldn’t, according to the survey.
Just over half of respondents, 53 percent, believe it’s unlikely that Trump will be convicted at the end of his federal election subversion trial. Thirty-five percent say it is likely that he will be convicted, the poll found.
Just over a quarter of his backers said it’s likely he will be convicted, while 61 percent say it’s unlikely the former president will be found guilty of a crime in the case.
Twenty percent of self-identified Trump supporters think he should be sentenced to prison if he is found guilty of his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Even less believe the former president is getting a fair trial, the survey found. Nearly all of his supporters believe he has not committed a crime and the charges against him are politically motivated.
The survey was conducted Dec. 10-14 among 1,016 registered voters and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.
