NC voters weigh November decision following Trump's conviction
A day after former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in a hush-money case, Triangle voters looked ahead to November — with some unswayed by the verdict and others questioning how they’ll vote.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, will face President Joe Biden in a rematch of the 2020 election. Trump beat Biden by a slim margin in North Carolina in 2020. And the convictions put some votes at risk. WRAL News polling in March showed that 13% of North Carolina voters who cast a ballot for Trump in 2020 would be less likely to vote for him in 2024 if convicted.
But a lot has changed since then, and Biden’s favorability has dipped in recent months. Political scientists aren’t convinced the conviction will sway many voters in the end — and the Trump campaign says the same.
“I hate Trump as a person,” said Tim Tooley, a Trump supporter and retired software engineer. “I can’t stand him as a person and I don’t like that he has an eight-word vocabulary, but I think Biden is asleep at the wheel. I don’t know who is running the country right now.”
He plans to vote for Trump again, as does Apex resident Elizabeth Gunn.
“Wow, he was found guilty,” Gunn said during an interview in downtown Apex. “However, he still gets my vote in the fall.”
The 2024 presidential election
In Apex, nearly 47% of registered voters identify as unaffiliated. Bill Marlow is among the town’s unaffiliated voters, but said he plans to vote for Biden. WRAL News spoke with him Friday in downtown Apex.
“I think it was just confirmation of everything that’s been going on,” Marlow said of Thursday’s verdict.
Apex resident Kevin Synder explained how he plans to vote.
“I was going to vote for Biden … I cannot vote for somebody that has 34 felony counts and three other indictments against him as well,” Synder said. “That’s just too much.”
Registered Republican voter and Apex resident Elizabeth Gunn explained her reaction.
“Wow, he was found guilty,” Gunn said in a conversation with WRAL News in downtown Apex. “However, he still gets my vote in the fall.”
Trump supporter and retired software engineer Tim Tooley echoed Gunn’s sentiments. Tooley is also an Apex resident. WRAL News spoke with him outside a sporting goods store in Apex.
“My vote is not going to change,” Tooley said.
Gunn said Trump’s guilt has nothing to do with how she feels she’s suffered the last four years.
“I think if we dug deep into everybody, we’re all a little guilty of some bad behavior,” Gunn said. “It just doesn’t bother me.”
The common thread Friday in Apex, a town pretty evenly split among registered Republican and Democrat voters, they know who they want, come November.
“I know what I’m doing before, and it wouldn’t have affected it one way or another,” said retired Apex resident Jim Herbst.
Apex resident and unaffiliated voter Ryan Garcia explained his thought process to Thursday’s news.
“It does absolutely nothing,” Garcia said. “It’s the same choices we had four years ago.”
What Trump’s guilty verdict means for NC voters
Since Thursday’s verdict, the Republican National Committee said nearly 500,000 donors have contributed nearly $35 million in fundraising.
A WRAL News Poll conducted in March looked to see how voters would be impacted by a conviction. About 49% unaffiliated voters in North Carolina said they’d be less likely to vote for Trump if he was convicted.
Kevin Alper, who ran the poll for SurveyUSA, says now that conviction happened, those who said they’d be on the fence, really aren’t.
“It's not that you're being untruthful when you say ‘yeah, you're less likely,’ but that doesn't necessarily translate to several months down the road actually voting for someone else,” Alper said.
If the polling holds, it means it could put nearly 1.3 million votes up for grabs in North Carolina.
Consider, Trump had 74,463 more votes in 2020 than Joe Biden did in the state of North Carolina.
Also, the March poll found 19% of conservative voters said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he was found guilty.
Alper said despite the numbers, a lot can change between now and November.
“Memories are short and there’s always another story around the corner,” Alper said.
