How Donald Trump’s hush money trial verdict could affect the 2024 US election
- The jury has begun deliberations on the first-ever trial of a the ex-US president, even as he makes a bid to return to the White House
- Voters may shun Trump if he is found guilty, but an acquittal would allow him to claim the other cases he faces have no merit
Jurors hearing the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president began their deliberations on Wednesday in Donald Trump’s hush money case, weighing a verdict with potentially big implications for the 2024 White House race.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Daniels had threatened to go public with her account of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, a liaison he denies.
The New York case is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces. But it has meant the Republican presidential candidate spent more time in court than campaigning in recent weeks, and brought outsize attention to the only case likely to go to trial before his November 5 election face-off with Democratic US President Joe Biden.
Here is how three potential outcomes from the jury room – a guilty verdict, an acquittal or a hung jury – could affect the presidential campaign.
If Trump is found guilty
Opinion polls show a guilty verdict could pose significant political danger for Trump in an election that will potentially be decided by just tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battleground states.