Even his most ardent supporters would concede that Trump is no one’s idea of a saint. And while his campaign aides might have been taken aback on Thursday by the sheer sweep of guilty verdicts on all 34 felony counts, their battle plan has been in place for some time. In fact, it wasn’t all that different from what they have been doing all along: They will attack the judge, the prosecutor, the whole process. “And then,” one top Trump adviser told me last week, “we’ll go raise $10 million off of it.”
Indeed, Trump’s fundraising website crashed within minutes of the verdict, which might or might not have been caused by the crush of money coming in. The notice that greeted donors said: “Under Maintenance. Our engineers are working to provide you with a better experience. We will be back shortly.”
Meanwhile, a campaign that turned Trump’s mug shot in the Georgia RICO case into a fundraising opportunity quickly seized this moment, as well. Newly convicted, the presumptive Republican nominee briefly posed on the sidewalk outside Trump Tower, waving to onlookers and raising his fist defiantly. There will be many more such made-for-video opportunities, including at the time of his sentencing, which is scheduled to take place July 11, four days before the opening of the GOP convention in Milwaukee.
Trump officials insist that the historic verdict — one that means the 2024 ballot will feature the first former president to be convicted of a felony — is unlikely to markedly change the trajectory of an election that is already close and likely to remain so.
And on that point, interestingly, President Biden’s campaign agrees.
“Today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a prewritten statement shortly after the verdict. “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
While the trial was ongoing, the Biden campaign was frustrated by its inability to break through the wall-to-wall courtroom coverage. That explains their stunt on Tuesday of dispatching actor Robert De Niro over to the Manhattan courthouse alongside two officers who helped defend the Capitol from pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. The plan had been to have De Niro deliver a statement attacking Trump as a threat to democracy, but it went haywire when the actor went off-script and also pronounced the former president guilty.
On Wednesday, as Biden and Vice President Harris were launching a Black voter outreach effort in Philadelphia, they were ignored by the major cable news outlets, which chose instead to continue featuring commentators talking about the unknowable deliberations of the Trump jury.
Still, polls have found that at least some voters say their choice this fall would be influenced by whether Trump is convicted. And in an election that could be decided by fewer than 100,000 voters in anywhere from three to seven swing states, even a small number could matter.
However, it is also worth remembering that the first debate between Trump and Biden is only four weeks away. Americans will be given a chance to see their choice standing before them, with each being called upon to tell them how they would change people’s lives for the better.
Now that the sordid courtroom chapter of the campaign has concluded, such a normal ritual in the process of selecting a president is something most Americans might even welcome.
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