Trump turns trial into campaign rally

Donald Trump didn’t seem to enjoy his five weeks in a New York City courtroom, where he has been on trial for allegedly falsifying business records linked to hush-money payments to a former porn star, but it could have gone a lot worse.

The former president’s lawyers rested their case this week, and while Trump did not testify, he spoke a great deal outside the courtroom — complaining bitterly about the process while violating the judge’s gag order. His supporters appear to have been listening approvingly: Polls show that seeing Trump in court, or angrily denouncing the process, has not dented his appeal, and has maybe even enhanced it. Trump is leading in five key swing states, although by more in the Sun Belt states — Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada — than in the northern states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Joe Biden leads by a couple of points in Wisconsin.

Next week in court, both sides will make their closing arguments and the jury will begin deliberating. The polling is unclear about how the verdict could impact Trump’s campaign. One poll last month found that while 21% of voters say they would be less likely to vote for him if convicted, 15% would be more likely to vote for him.

Looking at political actors, instead of polls, it is clear that the trial is not damaging Trump. Speaker Mike Johnson, a famously devout Baptist, rallied to Trump’s side at the courthouse in recent days, perhaps a signal that revelations of ex-president’s’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels have not dented his appeal to religious voters. Former presidential rival and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley also changed her tune, telling folks at the Hudson Institute Wednesday, “I will be voting for Trump.”