Convictions threaten Trump's lead in North Carolina
The criminal conviction of Donald Trump Thursday on 34 felony counts could tighten competition for voters in North Carolina — a battleground state that the major political parties see as key to winning the White House.
It likely won’t be a deal-breaker for Republican supporters of Trump. But it could harm him among the undecided and moderate voters who can decide races in a razor-thin state like North Carolina.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has held an edge in recent polling over Democratic President Joe Biden in the Tar Heel State heading into their November rematch. Polling suggests the convictions could shrink the gap.
It remains to be seen whether the case — which revolved around secret hush-money payments to a porn actress, whom he had also paid for sex — would materially hurt his efforts to regain the White House, particularly in a Bible Belt state like North Carolina. And, if it does, would it be enough to help Biden to overcome sinking approval ratings in the state?
Recent presidential elections have been extremely close in North Carolina. Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020 — each time with just under 50% of the vote. In 2020, Trump beat Biden by just 74,483 votes out of the more than 5.5 million ballots cast.
Thirteen percent of North Carolina voters who cast a ballot for Trump in 2020 said they’d be less likely to vote for Trump again if he were convicted of a criminal charge, according to a WRAL poll released in March. That means at least 350,000 votes could be at risk for Trump, based on state turnout in 2020.
“The potential is there for Trump to lose support from people who are not solidly in his camp,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College in Raleigh. “Swing voters who may not be comfortable with Biden could, in fact, move back to Biden because of a Trump conviction.”
But the situation is unprecedented — before now, there’s never been a major party candidate with a felony conviction. And voters are losing faith in Biden’s handling of the economy — the top issue for voters. That makes the race even more unpredictable in a state where elections are already notoriously difficult to forecast. “There are just so many factors that we can't really predict going forward,” McLennan said.
‘Short memories’
Time is perhaps the biggest factor. WRAL polling showed that most voters are unhappy with a Trump-Biden rematch. And since March, when the WRAL poll came out, Biden’s approval ratings have slipped in the state.
In March, 53% of North Carolinians viewed Biden unfavorably, according to a Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll. A new version of the poll issued this month showed that 58% of North Carolinians held an unfavorable opinion of Biden. The percentage of respondents with a favorable opinion of Biden dipped from 43% to 39% over the same period.
Trump’s favorability has largely remained the same — 52% of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion in May, down from 53% in March. Meanwhile, 45% said they had a favorable opinion of Trump, unchanged since March.
The May poll shows Trump leading Biden by as many as 10 points in North Carolina — with or without possible third-party candidates — up from a 6-point spread in March. Older surveys — including polls by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy and Quinnipiac University — have pointed to a narrower lead for Trump in the Tar Heel State.
When it comes to the economy, 52% of voters said in May that they’d trust Trump more than Biden with the economy, unchanged from March. But during that same time, the share of respondents who said they’d trust Biden more than Trump dropped two points to 34%.
“It seems like people have soured on Joe Biden,” McLennan said.
The questions now: Can Biden improve voters’ opinions of his handling of the economy and the country’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which could sway moderate and young voters. And will the hangover of Thursday’s convictions last until November?
A lot can happen in six months. And, historically, support for Trump has remained strong after scandals that might have upended other politicians.
“Americans have incredibly short memories,” McLennan said, pointing to the expected political fallout after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “Everybody thought that Trump's political career was over after Jan. 6. Yet now he's been nominated for the Republican Party.”
The hush-money trial in New York was just one of four criminal trials Trump faces in states around the country related to his actions before and during his presidency. In total he faces 91 felony charges. Two of the other cases relate to his alleged attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election, and the fourth is over the possession of classified documents after he left the White House. The hush-money case was the first to go to trial, and possibly the only one that will be resolved before the November election.
McLennan questioned whether the issues in the trial that ended this week will matter as much to voters as the cases involving the 2020 election and the documents. “This is the case that a lot of Americans look at and say, ‘This just doesn't seem that significant,’” he said.
A spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party declined to comment on Trump’s prospects in the state.
Trump’s campaign doesn’t appear concerned about possible blowback. Republican researchers have been surveying thousands of voters in North Carolina and other battleground states, according to a Trump campaign memo obtained by WRAL News.
“We have found that a conviction will not significantly change the advantage President Trump currently enjoys over Biden in our target states, nor will an acquittal increase his lead,” researchers Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis said in the memo to Republican National Committee leaders.
“Most voters, especially our supporters, believe the case is politically motivated and a conviction would be the result of a biased show trial,” the researchers said. “Biden’s voters will believe President Trump is guilty no matter what. And those in the middle are largely unconcerned and their votes aren’t going to hinge on the results of the trial.”
Trump’s campaign has capitalized on the sentiment that the charges against him are politically motivated. And Thursday was no different. In the hours after the verdict, a donation platform used by Trump’s campaign crashed.
Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, predicted Trump’s campaign would raise a record amount by the end of the week. “It will embolden his supporters,” Bitzer said. “They were never going to disavow him, no matter which guilty verdicts came about. They are with him through thick and thin.”
A spokesman for the state Democratic Party didn’t respond to a request for comment on Biden’s campaign in North Carolina. But Nationally, Democrats also sought to capitalize on the moment.
Within minutes of the verdict, Biden posted a message on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter: “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box. Donate to our campaign today.” Moments later, the North Carolina Democratic Party shared the message on its own account.
Independents and moderates
North Carolina is one of half a dozen closely contested swing states whose votes will likely decide who will be president starting next year. And while the state has voted Republican in almost every presidential election for decades, the state continues to shift left as its population booms.
Paul Shumaker, a longtime GOP consultant, said that if the 2024 election played out with the exact same trends and turnout as in 2020, Trump would still win North Carolina — but by just 35,000 votes.
As the number of left-leaning voters grows and Republicans’ margin for error shrinks, the battle will likely intensify for unaffiliated voters and moderates. Unaffiliated voters make up the state’s largest political bloc. It’s in that group where candidates fight for the backing of the undecided voters who sway statewide elections.
Forty-nine percent of unaffiliated voters said they’d be less likely to vote for Trump if convicted, according to the WRAL poll. The poll also found that 57% of North Carolinians who identified as moderate — regardless of party affiliation or 2020 vote — would be less likely to vote for Trump if he were convicted. The same went for 19% of self-identified conservative voters.
But while the polling shows Trump’s criminal issues might worry some voters, Democrats have their own struggles with unaffiliated voters, Shumaker said.
Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is popular among younger and more liberal voters but could turn off older voters or economically conservative unaffiliated voters, he said. And the protests in support of Gaza on college campuses could hurt Biden among moderates if Biden is seen as siding with the protesters to shore up his support among progressives.
“It’s like they try to fix one issue here, but they create another issue there,” he said of the Biden campaign.
But in a state that’s so close, the race could hinge on small movements. Biden’s prospects could improve if the inflation rate improved significantly or if enough swing voters walked away from Trump, MeLennan said. And Trump could benefit if, say, destabilization in the Middle East caused oil prices to go up, hitting Americans in the pocketbook.
"We're in an unusual political year,” McLennan said. “I mean — that's kind of the understatement of the year.”
