Trump campaign bashes poll on document trial before election

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign shot back Friday at a national poll that it said showed “not-so-surprising bias” about Americans’ support for trying the former president before the election on charges he mishandled national security documents.

The Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll found more than half of US adults (57%) want the 77-year-old to go before a court prior to the Republican primaries — and an even larger share (62%) said the case should move forward before the general election.

In an unusual move, the Trump campaign released an internal memo from pollster John McLaughlin saying the survey was affected by “bias and spin.”

The Politico/Ipsos survey weighted Democratic responses more heavily than Republicans when compared with the 2020 electorate, causing a “6-to-7-point bias” against the 45th president, the veteran pollster’s memo states.

McLaughlin also pointed out that the poll showed just one-quarter of Americans said they understand the classified documents case “very well,” but the “largely uninformed adults” were nevertheless asked to render a verdict before answering “process questions.”

“The questionnaire finds President Trump guilty and then wants to rush the trials, which Politico is overeager to write up,” the pollster said. “These results contradict the overwhelming lead President Trump has in so many Republican primary polls and many general election polls, including YouGov, Messenger, Rasmussen Reports, and Harvard Harris, which all have President Trump leading Joe Biden.”

McLaughlin noted many other polls found majorities of voters view Trump’s indictments by both special counsel Jack Smith and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as politically motivated.

In April, Bragg unsealed a 34-count indictment against the former president for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair from a decade before.

In June, Smith unveiled a 37-count indictment that alleged Trump had withheld sensitive classified material from the Justice Department and FBI and then obstructed justice by lying about having done so.

The Manhattan case is scheduled to start in March of next year, while the Miami federal case is expected to start in December of this year.

Republicans surveyed in the Politico/Ipsos poll were split when asked whether Trump should be put on trial before their party’s primary concludes, with 42% in favor and 40% opposed. Nearly half (46%) favor a trial ahead of the general election.

Among independents, 47% agreed that the trial should occur before the GOP primary.

However, most Democrats (77%) said the ex-president should be tried before the Republican primary and 86% want a trial before the 2024 election. 

Around two-thirds of Americans also said they understood the charges in both Trump cases, with slightly more Democrats indicating a high degree of knowledge about the indictments.

McLaughlin & Associates has analyzed 28 polls with 70% accuracy since 2000, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling aggregator ratings.

The survey sampled 1,005 adults on June 27 and June 28. Interviews were conducted online in English with 374 Republicans, 441 Democrats and 122 independents.