BRISTOL, Pa. — Inside his Delaware headquarters, President Joe Biden’s campaign is signaling it will incorporate Donald Trump’s recent felony conviction as a core element of the Democratic incumbent’s reelection message.
But in nearby battleground Pennsylvania, a state that could decide control of Congress and the presidency this fall, Democrats are far from certain that Trump’s criminal record matters to voters at all.
“It’ll have an effect, but a fairly small effect,” former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said of Trump’s recent 34 felony convictions in the New York hush money case. “I don’t think we can count on it. We’ve got to get out and win the election talking about the things that are important.”
A week after Trump became the first U.S. president ever convicted of a felony, Biden’s Democratic Party has only just begun to navigate the delicate politics of the presumptive Republican nominee’s unprecedented legal status.
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There are key voices within Biden’s campaign headquarters who believe that Democrats should lean into Trump’s conviction as a significant turning point in politics and history. Others favor a more cautious approach, fearful of a voter backlash if Democratic officials push too hard on a criminal conviction that Trump insists, without evidence, was “rigged” against him.
The Democrats’ decision could prove pivotal in the evolving Biden-Trump rematch — and in the battle for control of the House and Senate.
The bottom line: On Wednesday, a Biden campaign senior adviser, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said Trump’s felony conviction would become a regular part of the campaign’s message, with plans to incorporate the term “convicted felon” freely in statements and in news releases — and potentially its paid advertising. But it will be part of a broader context in which the campaign will argue Trump doesn’t respect the U.S. election process or the judicial system.
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and deflected a light-hearted question about whether the people she watched the verdict with were “pretending to not be happy” when the conviction was announced.
She kept a straight face even as Kimmel and the audience laughed. Instead, Harris discussed the case and the jury’s deliberations before adding, “I think the reality is cheaters don’t like getting caught and being held accountable.”
Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who advises Biden’s campaign, pushed back against those warning of political risks should the president and down-ballot Democrats overplay their hand.
“The guy was convicted of 34 counts. How do you overplay that?” Anzalone said of Trump. “This conviction makes voters really queasy.”
There is no sense that Biden will abandon other campaign priorities as he leans into Trump’s legal trouble.
In fact, the Democratic president on Tuesday announced plans to enact immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as the White House tries to neutralize immigration as a political liability. He’s also focusing on the GOP push to further erode abortion rights while promoting his moves to curb inflation, reduce prescription drug costs and improve the nation’s infrastructure.
And in her interview with Kimmel, Harris pivoted from talking about the case to mentioning Biden’s efforts to reduce drug prices and cap the cost of insulin for some Americans.
Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller dismissed questions about Biden’s evolving strategy and instead pointed to the criminal trial of Biden’s son, Hunter, who is facing three felony charges stemming from the purchase of a gun in October 2018 and has separately been trailed by allegations that he traded on his family name to do business abroad.
“Crooked Joe Biden will do anything to distract from Hunter’s trial and the fact his family has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Miller said. “The Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on Nov. 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”
The rest of the Democratic Party may ultimately follow Biden’s lead on Trump’s conviction, but as Biden’s campaign quietly unveiled its intentions to focus at least somewhat on it, Democratic leaders were still offering a cautious outlook.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, who chairs the House Democrats’ campaign arm, declined to say whether she would use the term “convicted felon” to describe Trump in her committee’s massive paid advertising campaign over the coming months. But DelBene said she would ensure that vulnerable House Republicans in elections across America would need to answer for their “blind loyalty” to Trump.
The issue is already proving to be a key dividing line on the ground in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District in suburban Bucks County, which one of the most important swing regions in U.S. politics. As Bucks goes this fall, so may go control of Congress and the White House.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in the wake of the verdict found that perceptions of Trump and Biden didn’t meaningfully shift from before the verdict was announced.
The poll also found that about half of Americans think Trump should end his presidential campaign because of the conviction. That finding is also essentially unchanged since before the verdict and driven strongly by partisanship.
“The guy was convicted of 34 counts. How do you overplay that? This conviction makes voters really queasy.”
Democratic pollster John Anzalone
