Hunter Biden’s gun trial could deter some voters from casting their ballots for President Joe Biden in November—potentially enough to tip the scales in former President Donald Trump’s favor in the razor-thin race, according to polls.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during the 2024 White House Easter Egg Roll on the ... [+]
An Emerson poll taken last week found 64% of voters said Hunter Biden’s trial would have no impact on their voting decisions in the 2024 election, while 24% said it makes them less likely to support Joe Biden, and 12% said it makes them more likely to support him.
Roughly half of voters, 49%, said they do not believe Hunter Biden is being prosecuted because his father is president, 27% think he is and 24% are unsure, Emerson found.
The results show the plurality of voters who said the trial hurts their chances of voting for Biden and who said they don’t believe Hunter Biden is being prosecuted because his father is president are Republicans, however.
Only 11% of respondents who said they would be less likely to vote for Biden are Democrats, compared to 42% who are Republicans, while 65% of those who said Hunter Biden’s prosecution is not due to his father being president are Republicans and 40% of those who said he is being prosecuted for that reason are Democrats.
A Monmouth University poll taken in September last year produced similar results: 27% of the electorate said Hunter Biden’s legal troubles make them less likely to vote for his father, but most of those voters are Republicans and wouldn’t have voted for Biden anyway, and just 2% of Biden supporters said the issue may deter them from voting for the president.
Hunter Biden is on trial for three felony charges in Delaware related to a gun he bought in 2018, when prosecutors say he was addicted to drugs and lied by checking a box on the federal form to purchase the firearm attesting that he was not a drug user, then illegally owned the gun for 11 days. The gun charges are outside of the scope of years-long Republican-led investigations into whether Hunter Biden’s business dealings financially enriched the president and whether the president used his influence to aid son or other family members professionally.
Despite separate GOP-led investigations producing no evidence of wrongdoing on the president’s part, roughly half of voters, 50%, believe Biden personally profited from his son’s business dealings, according to a February Economist/YouGov survey that also found 67% believe Hunter Biden personally profited from his father’s positions in government.
Justice Department Special Counsel David Weiss’ office charged Hunter Biden, 54, in September last year with lying on the required form to purchase a firearm, lying to a federally licensed gun dealer and illegally owning a gun while he was addicted to drugs. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have argued he was in denial about his drug addiction when he made the purchase. Throughout the weeklong trial, three of Hunter Biden’s ex-romantic partners and his daughter, Naomi Biden, gave sometimes-emotional testimony about Hunter Biden’s drug use, and prosecutors referenced his admission in his own memoir about his battle with addiction to make their case that he knew he was an addict when he bought the gun. Hunter Biden, who has said he’s been sober since 2019, faces up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted. The president said last week he would not pardon his son in the case and will accept the jury’s decision.
Hunter Biden’s trial comes on the heels of former President Donald Trump’s conviction in Manhattan on 34 counts of falsifying business records. While polls suggest it hasn’t significantly dented Trump’s standing, the support he has lost could be enough to tip the race in Biden’s favor as surveys show the two are virtually tied. About half of voters, 49%, said Trump should drop his campaign in the wake of the conviction, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll, roughly the same share who said he should suspend his campaign after he was indicted in April 2023. The Emerson poll found Trump still leads Biden, 46% to 45%, about the same as the group’s May survey, though 33% of voters said the guilty verdict makes them less likely to support Trump and 27% said it makes them more likely to support him.
0.8. That’s how many percentage points Trump leads Biden by in a head-to-head matchup, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average.
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