Most Americans want verdict on Trump election charges before 2024 vote, poll finds

GOP frontrunner continues to face uncertainty among independents and even Republicans over his criminal cases

Nearly half of Americans say that they want federal courts to reach a verdict on Donald Trump’s criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election before votes are cast in this year’s presidential election.

A CNN poll released on Monday found that 43 per cent of Americans see a resolution to that matter as a necessity given that Mr Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee for president this year. The share of respondents who agreed was markedly higher than the percentage of Americans who said it wasn’t important to their vote, which was around one in five, or the share who said the trial should be postponed until after the election (which was just 11 per cent). A further 16 per cent said they hoped the trial would conclude before November, but were not overly concerned with the outcome’s timing.

The poll is another piece in the growing pile of evidence suggesting that the greatest threat to Donald Trump’s desired second term (beyond his unparalleled unfavourability ratings) remains his four criminal trials. The ex-president is facing a total of 91 felony counts; prosecutors in two separate jurisdictions are alleging that he committed criminal acts in the course of attempting to reverse Joe Biden’s lawful victory in the 2020 election.

He also faces accusations of illegally retaining classified documents from his time at the White House, and displaying them to favoured guests at Mar-a-Lago.

This latest CNN poll comes on the heels of a survey from Morning Consult and Bloomberg last week which found that voters in swing states, particularly independents but also one in four Republicans, would hesitate or outright refuse to support Mr Trump were he convicted of one or more felonies.

Those numbers are causing consternation for some Republicans who see Mr Trump as poison for down-ballot candidates and the overall health of the Republican Party. The twice-impeached former president has become a fundraising juggernaught while the Republican National Committee (RNC) has been starved for donations and reported its worst fundraising levels in nearly a decade for 2023. The transfer of dollar-power from party executives to Mr Trump’s team has led to the former president being able to flip a switch and unleash negative ads against his enemies in the party; more recently, it has led to Republican donors directly covering his staggering (and growing) legal bills through donations shared with his Save America PAC.

Mr Trump’s campaign donations in Q4 of 2023 lagged sharply behind the total raised by Joe Biden, the incumbent president who is readying himself for a rematch with his 2020 rival in November. He only slightly outraised Nikki Haley, his last remaining challenger for the GOP nomination. Two thirds of his related Save America PAC’s expenditures in Q3-4 of 2023 went to legal bills.

The CNN poll also relayed Americans’ growing distrust in the sanctity of the Supreme Court as an institution and the justices themseves to uphold their oaths.

Just over four in 10 Americans say they would accept a ruling from the Supreme Court on the 2024 election as valid. Three justices currently on the bench were appointed by Mr Trump, and another, Clarence Thomas, is married to a right-wing conservative conspiracy theory fan whose involvement in efforts to help Mr Trump overturn the 2020 election was revealed by journalists. Mr Thomas has faced direct calls from Democrats to abstain from any future rulings relating to January 6 or Mr Trump’s bid to return to the White House.

The CNN/SRSS survey was conducted between 15-20 January. Responses from 1,212 adults were recorded with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.