Saturday, June 1, 2024 - Democrats and their media allies should put the corks back in their champagne bottles because despite a massive spike in Trial awareness from our Wednesday night to Thursday night data (pre- and post-conviction – 800 likely voters per night), voters appeared to shrug at the court ruling as there was NO impact on any of the ballots.
As you know, we have been tracking awareness and impact of the Trial across our 7 Target States for several weeks now. In our Wednesday night combined data, 26% of likely voters said that the NY Trial was the top story they were following. In last night's data, it spiked to 41% who said that the NY Trial was the top story they were following. Further, when asked what they had seen, read or heard about Donald Trump in the past day or so, on Wednesday 49% mentioned the NY Trial/Criminal case. On Thursday night, those mentions jumped to 61%. We also saw the number of voters who said they were following the Trial closely tick up from 62% on Wednesday to 65% on Thursday.
Yet despite this marked increase in awareness, there was no change in voters' opinions of the Trial – 52% said they thought the Trial was politically motivated in Wednesday's data and it stayed at 52% in last night's data. As importantly, as illustrated by the table below, President Trump's lead in every ballot iteration remained statistically unchanged.
As you may recall, earlier this week we told our donors and supporters that our polling in these Target States was indicating that most all of the Trial impact was "baked in the cake" and that we expected marginal impact from an adverse ruling. So far, that seems to be the case. However, we wouldn't be surprised to see some national media polls (where deep blue states like CA, NY, and IL hold great weight) show shifts based on the ruling. But as you know, President Trump's path to 270 Electoral Votes runs through these 7 Target States. And thus far, we see no discernable impact.
