Opinion Today
March 19, 2024
Courts, campaigns, and confidence in American democracy Bright Line Watch The 2024 campaign promises to be like nothing the United States has seen before. Normally, spring of a presidential election year is dominated by a competitive campaign for the nomination of at least one major party. This year, neither the Democratic nor Republican primary contest is competitive. Instead, the coming months appear set to be dominated by legal machinations, with Republican front-runner Donald Trump facing four sets of criminal indictments and his legal team deploying appeals and procedural objections to delay trials for as long as possible. In this context, and with attention to the potential implications of these developments for the performance of American democracy, we fielded parallel surveys of 678 political scientists and a representative sample of 2,798 Americans from February 15–23, 2024.
The Good, Bad and Ugly in a New Poll on Trump’s Trials and the Supreme Court Ankush Khardori, Politico Magazine A new POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos poll suggests a conviction in the Manhattan trial could turn off independents.
Most Americans still think Trump should go to trial before the 2024 Presidential election Chris Jackson, Annaleise Azevedo Lohr & Bernard Mendez, Ipsos Americans’ opinions on several of the indictments Trump is facing, including the federal 2020 election subversion case, the sensitive document case, the falsifying business records case, and the Georgia 2020 election subversion case, are highly divided by political identity. That said, the poll finds that over half of Americans believe Trump is guilty in at least one of the four indictments tested, levels that also vary widely across party lines.
