Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records Thursday by a jury in the New York borough of Manhattan.
The verdict makes Trump a felon, but it also has several other effects on his future and the presidential election. He’s expected to appeal the decision.
Here’s what will happen next for the embattled former president, who declared after the jury’s decision that “the real verdict is going to be November 5th.”
While Trump is awaiting sentencing on July 11, it’s not projected to be his next legal move. He needs to start the appeals process within 30 days — that would be a June 29 deadline. Todd Blanche, the former president’s lawyer, said that if post-trial motions fail, “then as soon as we can appeal, we will. And the process in New York is there’s a sentencing, and then we appeal from there.”
Once his team files his intention to appeal, the process is expected to take months. Several Republicans said they think the appeal should be successful, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a usual Trump ally.
“I expect this case to be reversed on appeal and for Donald Trump to be elected president in November,” Graham posted on X.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) told the Washington Post that the judge’s instructions that the jury had to agree on whether Trump was guilty but could have varying opinions about which other crime he had committed was a decision that could benefit the former president.
“To have a jury instruction that says you don’t have to agree on what that other crime is, I think it is — well, I’ll just say that’s very ripe for appeal,” Armstrong said.
If the initial appeal doesn’t work, Trump’s team will have further options.
The team could appeal to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, or even ask for the Supreme Court to take up the case.
But even if Trump’s appeals process fails, it’s unlikely he faces real incarceration, and Judge Juan Merchan previously stated he wouldn’t prefer to put the former president in jail.
Pollsters have been asking voters for months about how a “guilty” verdict would affect their decision to vote for Trump in November. Only 17% of registered voters said it would make them less likely to vote for Trump, and 82% said it wouldn’t affect their vote or it would convince them to be more likely to vote for him.
Among independent voters in the poll, 11% said it would make them less likely to vote for him.
Another poll proved less optimistic for Trump. A Marquette University poll of registered voters asked their opinion on a head-to-head matchup between President Joe Biden and Trump if Trump was proven “guilty” or “not guilty.”
Voters chose Biden by 4 percentage points with a “guilty” verdict and Trump by 6 points with a not-guilty verdict — a 10-point swing in the wrong direction for the former president.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is excluded from the head-to-head poll, but he has made a measurable difference in most polls, with some favoring Trump and some favoring Biden.
A poll conducted right before the trial’s conclusion, by Morning Consult of 10,271 registered voters, saw Trump with a 2-point lead over Biden.
However, those polls were all conducted before Thursday’s verdict. Asking people to imagine what they would do in an “alternative reality” is a risky business, Democratic pollster and strategist Mark Mellman told Politico.
“People are very bad at putting themselves into an alternative reality and predicting how they’re going to respond to some set of facts in an alternative reality,” Mellman said. “They have a hard enough time predicting what they are going to have for dinner tonight, let alone how they’re going to react to some new situation.”
While May 30 will likely live in the former president and his supporters’ minds for months to come, there are several critical dates for the former president incoming.
First, he will have to put the trial’s result to the side and debate Biden on June 27. Trump and Biden are scheduled to face off at least one more time on ABC on Sept. 10. There’s speculation for other debates, but nothing has been made official yet.
In between head-to-head showdowns with Biden, Trump’s legal team will have to file its appeal by late June, with an unknown date for its conclusion. Trump’s sentencing will take place on July 11, just four days before the July 15 Republican National Convention nominates him as the GOP presidential candidate.
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Before the RNC, Trump will have to name a vice presidential candidate to run with him — a contest that has not gotten any clearer as the convention approaches.
Early voting for the general election will start in September and will continue into the Nov. 5 presidential election. Trump’s three other criminal cases are unlikely to go to trial this year.