Many voters say they donāt want a convicted felon in the White House. But do they mean it? And can prosecutors get to trial before the vote?
Can anything stop former President Donald Trumpās reelection campaign juggernaut, now that Trump has all but crushed his GOP primary opponents and pulled ahead of President Joe Biden in national polls?
While November is a long time away, and plenty could happen before then, voters do say Trump has a massive weakness: A potential criminal conviction. In poll after poll, lots of voters who shrug off Trumpās four indictments say they wouldnāt support him if heās convicted of a felony. If they mean itāor even if a big chunk of them doāthey could easily be enough to keep him out of the White House.
What remains to be seen, of course, is whether they mean itāand, crucially, whether prosecutors can put Trump on trial in time for the rest of us to find out.
That makes prosecutorsā race against the clock one of the most important narratives of the 2024 election cycle, as teams of lawyers work feverishly around the country to overcome Trumpās efforts to gum up the gears of the judicial system and push the start-date of all his trials past November.
Everyone who could be swayed has already been peeled away or never voted for him in the first place. All thatās left are the people who would vote for literally any Republican and those who think God sent him.
The real problem is that thatās still tens of millions of people, including a terrifying amount of electoral college votes.