One in 10 Republicans less likely to vote for Trump after guilty verdict: Reuters/Ipsos poll

WASHINGTON - Ten per cent of Republican registered voters say they are less likely to vote for Donald Trump following his felony conviction for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on May 31.

The two-day poll, conducted in the hours after

the Republican presidential candidate’s conviction

by a Manhattan jury on May 30, also found that 56 per cent of Republican registered voters said the case would have no effect on their votes and 35 per cent said they were more likely to support Trump, who has claimed the charges against him are politically motivated and has vowed to appeal.

The potential loss of a tenth of his party’s voters is more significant for Trump than the stronger backing of more than a third of Republicans, since many of the latter would be likely to vote for him regardless of the conviction.

Among independent registered voters, 25 per cent said Trump’s conviction made them less likely to support him in November, compared with 18 per cent who said they were more likely and 56 per cent who said the conviction would have no impact on their decision.

The verdict could shake up the race between Trump, who was US president from 2017 to 2021, and Democratic President Joe Biden ahead of the Nov 5 election. US presidential elections are typically decided by thin margins in a handful of competitive swing states, meaning that even small numbers of voters defecting from their candidates can have a big impact.

Mr Biden and Trump remain locked in a tight race, with 41 per cent of voters saying they would vote for Mr Biden if the election were held now and 39 per cent saying they would pick Trump, according to the poll, which surveyed 2,556 US adults nationwide.

Mr Biden’s marginal lead was within the online poll’s roughly 2 percentage point margin of error for registered voters, in line with a Reuters/Ipsos poll from earlier in May that showed Trump and Mr Biden each with 40 per cent support. In both polls, about one in five voters said they are undecided, leaning towards a third-party candidate or might not vote at all.

The election is still more than five months away, meaning much could change between now and Nov 5, and some Republican strategists say they believe the news of Trump’s conviction will have little influence on voters’ thinking by then.

Trump is due to be sentenced on July 11, and the poll showed the electorate divided on whether he should go to prison for his crimes, with 53 per cent of registered voters saying he should not be jailed over the hush money case and 46 per cent saying he should serve time.

Incarceration would not prevent Trump from campaigning or taking office if he were to win. His sentencing hearing will come just days before the Republican Party is due to formally nominate him as its presidential candidate at its convention in Milwaukee.

Voters are split on whether the hush money case against Trump was politically motivated, with 52 per cent saying the prosecution was mainly about upholding the rule of law and 46 per cent saying it was about trying to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.

Trump has been indicted in three other criminal cases

, but legal wrangling could keep those trials from occurring before the November election. Legal scholars consider the pending trials – which involve charges that Trump engaged in electoral fraud and that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office – to be more serious than the hush money case. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

Some 60 per cent of registered voters said it was important the three pending trials take place before the election, compared with 39 per cent who said it was not important and 1 per cent who did not answer the question. REUTERS