49% of independent voters and 15% of registered Republican voters believe Donald Trump should withdraw from the race for the White House after the guilty verdict issued by the New York jury, according to a poll conducted by Morning Consult, 36 hours after the verdict was announced.
54% of U.S. voters believe the decision is correct, while 34% of them oppose it, according to data published in the public opinion survey report.
The numbers are devastating for Donald Trump, but there are still five months until the presidential elections, and the situation can change.
In a tight race like the one for the White House, a difference of just a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania is enough for Biden to stay in the White House or for Trump to return.
It is foolish, dangerous, and irresponsible for a person to say that a trial was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. First, Trump questioned our electoral system. Then he questioned our judicial system.
Joe Biden, President of the United States
The vote in that state will likely be decisive in determining the winner in the November 5th elections because it has a large number of electors, 19, and support for the two candidates is evenly divided.
"The fact that Donald Trump paid money to silence a porn star and that the jurors found that he falsified accounting documents to cover it up is just a short and tasteless chapter in a much larger story: Trump is a budding tyrant…," stated Jon Ossoff, Democratic senator from Georgia, as quoted by the New York Times.
Such a statement indicates that Joe Biden's campaign message has changed after the former president was found guilty, and Democrats will make efforts to portray Trump as a criminal seeking revenge on Americans who are not in his camp.
"I believe it is the duty of every Democrat to remind voters that Donald Trump is a common criminal and how unprecedented this is in U.S. history," emphasized Beto O'Rourke, a former Democratic congressman from Texas.
A Thin Case
Alvin Bragg, 50, won the election for the position of Chief Prosecutor of Manhattan District, New York state, in 2022. Immediately after taking office, he shocked everyone by deciding to halt an investigation against former President Donald Trump, suggesting it was heading towards an indictment.
Two prosecutors involved in the investigation resigned, considering their boss was making a big mistake.
But Bragg was actually dissatisfied with the quality of the prosecutors' work and wanted to redo the investigation.
The case of payments made by Donald Trump to Stormy Daniels, a porn star with whom he had a few romantic encounters, besides the sensationalism of the story, was the weakest of the four major cases American prosecutors had against Donald Trump.
You always feel like the bad guy, even when you're not. It was intimidating in the courtroom. The jurors were sizing me up from head to toe, but I'm glad that the things that needed to come out have come out, proving that I've always told the truth. For me, it's not over. It will never be over. Even if Trump is the guilty one, I will live my whole life in this new situation as the bad guy for some
Stormy Daniels, key witness in Donald Trump's trial
In addition to this, the former president is being investigated for possession and manipulation of secret documents after leaving the White House, for attempting to influence the vote count in the state of Georgia, and for the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In all three cases, Donald Trump's strong legal team has managed to postpone the start of the trials through court decisions until after November 5, the date of the presidential elections.
Alvin Bragg grew up in Harlem, New York, at a time when crime in the city was at its peak.
In an interview, he recounted that during that time, he was threatened with a gun six times, three times by police forces, and once attacked on the street with a knife held to his throat.
Additionally, a police officer falsely accused him of drug trafficking, being detained while on his way to the supermarket, sent by his father.
Trump Expert
Alvin Bragg attended Harvard Law School and started his career as a lawyer in criminal cases and civil rights defense.
He decided to become a prosecutor and was accepted to work for the U.S. Attorney General in Manhattan, then moved to the New York State Attorney General's office starting in 2018.
It was then that he became involved in investigations related to Donald Trump, the president at the time, and his business dealings.
Alvin Bragg oversaw the investigation into the misappropriation of funds within the Trump Foundation, used to avoid paying taxes.
Following the investigation, Donald Trump reached an agreement with the New York State prosecutors, dissolved the foundation, and paid a $2 million fine.
In January 2022, Alvin Bragg won the election for the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Manhattan District, New York, becoming the first person of color in this position.
From the start, both Trump family representatives and conservatives criticized him, seeing him as a threat to the former president.
The main accusations against him were that he was not tough enough on criminals, and the sentences he sought in court were too lenient.
First Major Success
"As a prosecutor experienced in white-collar crimes, Alvin Bragg believes in holding powerful people accountable for harming ordinary New Yorkers," states the official presentation of the prosecutor's activity.
"He obtained an indictment against Stephen K. Bannon (an associate of Donald Trump) and WeBuildTheWall company, a non-profit corporation based in Florida, on charges including money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud, related to a year-long fundraising scheme that raised over $15 million from thousands of donors nationwide based on false promises," the activity report cited further.
Throughout 2022, Alvin Bragg leads a significant investigation against the Trump Organization, the corporation that managed all the family's businesses.
Based on the evidence, Allen Weisselberg, the organization's chief financial officer, pleads guilty and reaches an agreement with prosecutors, and the Trump Organization loses a civil lawsuit accusing it of tax evasion, being ordered to pay a $364 million fine.
I am under the judge's decision not to comment on the trial, which has never happened before - no presidential candidate has ever had to endure such a decision. I am under an ugly decision, which forced me to pay thousands of dollars in penalties, being threatened with imprisonment
Donald Trump, commenting on the court's decision not to attack the jurors, judge, prosecutors, and witnesses in his trial
Alvin Bragg thus achieves his first major success in court against Donald Trump. Immediately, his team, motivated by the victory, begins the investigation in the Stormy Daniels case.
The Only Voice That Matters
After completing the investigation, prosecutor Alvin Bragg goes before a Grand Jury, a preliminary chamber where jurors hear evidence from a case and witnesses, with the possibility to validate or reject the investigation.
With a positive verdict from the Grand Jury, Alvin Bragg charges Donald Trump and forwards the case to court. And thus began the historic trial against the former American president.
"Even though this defendant is considered to be different from any other in American history, we have reached this trial and, ultimately, this verdict, in the same way as any other case that enters the courtroom," stated prosecutor Alvin Bragg, immediately after the verdict was announced.
"I want to thank the jury for its services. Jurors fulfill a fundamental civic duty. Their service is literally the cornerstone of our judicial system. The only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken," Bragg added.
A moral issue has become illegal
Before the trial began, a number of experts believed there was little chance of obtaining a guilty verdict against Donald Trump.
The type of offense was in a lower class, meaning it posed a low social risk, and presenting the case was difficult due to the bureaucratic maze created by Trump and his associates to make payments to Stormy Daniels.
"The prosecution is even weaker than I feared it would be, and I believe it will be easily dismissed, with Trump quickly acquitted in this case," said John Bolton, former national security advisor to President Trump, now a critic of his, immediately after the trial began.
Additionally, David French, a former lawyer and legal analyst for The New York Times, doubted that Donald Trump would be found guilty in this trial.
"...the criminal prosecution of Trump faces serious legal questions, and the answers to the legal questions will decide the fate of the trial much more than any factual dispute," French wrote in an article from April 2023.
"The evidence clearly shows that Trump devised a plan to pay women who claimed to have been his partners to influence the 2016 elections. This is clearly immoral... But whether the payment was legal or not is the key question that will determine Trump's legal fate," he further wrote at the time.
"I was disappointed in the strength of Alvin Bragg's case before the indictment. I am still disappointed. Not because of the facts. But because of the law," David French also wrote in a post on the social network "X".