Americans want Donald Trump to Have a ‘Speedy’ Trail. That is a gamble for those who want to see Trump convicted or win back the White House – According to a poll commissioned by POLITICO Magazine, most Americans believe that efforts to prosecute former President Donald Trump should get underway quickly, with a trial taking place before the GOP primaries and long before the 2024 presidential election.
The results, which appear to unite a heavily divided country on one of the most controversial figures in modern political history, suggest that both Democrats and Republicans believe the case could interfere with both the primary and presidential elections.
On July 6, Ipsos revealed how more than half of all Americans “think former President Donald Trump should head to trial ahead of both the 2024 Republican primaries and the 2024 presidential election.” The survey did find, however, that Republicans are more split on the matter than Democrats. According to the poll, 86% of Democrats believe the trial should be fast-tracked, while 46% of Republicans believe the same.
Other Interesting Findings and What They Mean
The poll also asked Americans what punishment they believe the former president should receive if he is convicted in the secret documents case. It found that 43% of all Americans believe Trump should be imprisoned, while 18% believe he should given probation and no imprisonment. A further 17% of Americans said he should be fined, and 22% said there should be no punishment at all.
Those numbers, of course, don’t mean that 43% of Americans believe that Trump is guilty. In fact, pollsters found that more – some 49% – believe that Trump committed a crime.
Importantly, the numbers also do not show that 22% of Americans believe Trump should be able to get away with committing a crime. Instead, the figures may offer a look at how Americans feel about the case, with nearly a quarter of the country potentially believing that the entire case is rigged from the start and that the former president will have committed no crime even if the court says otherwise.
Among the 43% of Americans who believe that Trump should be imprisoned, many may also have voted for the former president and could theoretically vote for him again if the courts find him not guilty.
The poll shows the country both united and divided, with most Americans supporting a speedy trial, but half the country maintaining their skepticism about Trump himself.
While Democrats may want to see Trump trialed ahead of the election because they hope that he will be convicted, imprisoned, and prevented from returning to the White House, Republicans may hope that a speedier trial could see the matter resolved and Trump acquitted before voters go to the polls in November, 2024.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
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