Americans are split over whether Trump should face prison in the hush money case, AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON — Americans are about evenly divided on whether former President Donald Trump should serve a prison sentence for his recent conviction for a crime on allegations of hush money, according to a new poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Among U.S. adults, 48% say the former president and presumptive Republican nominee should be put behind bars, while 50% say he should not. About 8 in 10 Democrats say Trump should receive prison time, while independents are divided. About half, 49%, of independents say he should, while 46% say he should not.
Most Republicans believe Trump has been mistreated by the justice system and say he should not go to prison. Democrats, on the other hand, generally believe prosecutors, the judge and the jurors treated Trump fairly as a defendant.
The results underscore the divisions over the case, the first brought against a current or former U.S. president. Both Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden have made the trial a central part of their campaigns to their respective bases: Biden has frequently pointed out that Trump was the first former president to be convicted of a crime; Trump has argued that Democrats orchestrated the case against him for political purposes.
Trumps the sentencing was postponed from Thursday, three days before the opening of the Republican National Convention, until September at the latest, when early voting will begin in several states.
“I thought it was all a farce,” said Dolores Mejia, a 74-year-old Republican from Peoria, Arizona, who has been following the trial closely. “I wasn’t surprised he was convicted because the court was in New York, a very blue state. … It seemed like it was completely against him.”
A small but notable portion of Republicans hold a different view than the rest of their party. The poll found that 14% of Republicans approve of Trump’s conviction, while 12% say he should spend time behind bars.
“I knew he had a big ego and questionable values when I first voted for him in 2016, but I thought the presidency would be a humbling experience for him, and I was wrong,” said Leigh Gerstenberger, a Pennsylvania Republican who said he agreed with the jury’s findings in the New York case and believes Trump should spend at least some time behind bars.
“I could not be more disappointed in his conduct, both in and out of office,” the 71-year-old retiree said. “There are plenty of Americans who have spent time behind bars for lesser offenses. President Trump should not be treated differently.”
About 4 in 10 American adults are extremely or very confident that Trump was treated fairly by jurors, the judge or prosecutors. Just under half, 46%, approve of the conviction in the case, in line with a AP-NORC poll conducted in Junewhile about 3 in 10 disapprove and a quarter are neutral.
Some Americans believe Trump should not be jailed, but reject his arguments that he has been treated unfairly by the justice system.
“I don’t think the specific crime deserves time,” said Christopher Smith, a 43-year-old independent in Tennessee. “I see what he did, lying about company records because of an affair, as more of a moral crime,” Smith said, explaining that he believes prison time should be the punishment for crimes in which a convicted person actively harms another person.
The poll found that Americans are less divided on another recent high-profile case. Last month, Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was convicted of three felonies in federal court for lying about drug use when he bought a gun. Six in 10 American adults approve of Hunter Biden’s conviction, with much narrower political divides: About 6 in 10 Democrats approve, as do about 7 in 10 Republicans.
About 6 in 10 American adults believe Hunter Biden should receive a prison sentence for his conviction in the case. Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to believe a prison sentence is warranted.
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The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta.