The First Polls Since Trump’s Guilty Verdict Are In
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I am fasting in preparation for a colonoscopy. Colorectal cancer is one of the most common types for young people now, so it's good that you're taking care of yourself.

Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyPolitics podcast. I'm Galen Druk. We are four days out from former President Trump's guilty verdict in the Manhattan criminal case. And yes, dear listener, we do have polls. The early indication is a small but noticeable shift away from Trump in head-to-head polling with President Biden. So who is shifting? Is it durable? We're going to talk about it.

Also, Mexico elected a new president over the weekend. Claudia Scheinbaum got nearly 60% of the vote and will be the first woman and first Jewish president of Mexico. Plus,

Happy June. We are now officially on Supreme Court decision watch with cases surrounding January 6th, the Second Amendment and abortion medication regulations yet to be decided. To prepare for those coming opinions, we're going to play a game of guess what Americans think Supreme Court addition. Do Americans approve of the current court?

Do they think it will deliver an unbiased decision on Trump's presidential immunity case? Stick around and find out. But we're going to begin with the latest polls. And here with me to discuss is Director of Data Analytics, Elliot Morris. Welcome, Elliot. How's it going? Hey, Galen. Happy...

Monday? Happy Monday, Galen. Happy Monday. Okay, we were talking before this began, but you're running on little sleep. I'm running on little food. But we're going to try to do our best here. You know, this is a model season podcast, okay, for me. Yeah, Elliot, when's that forecast coming out? Oh, wouldn't you like to know?

All right, I guess I'm not going to be able to get it out of you. Okay, Elliot, how much polling have we gotten since Trump's guilty conviction? And what's the general sense? So by my count, we got seven polls and several of them asked the horse race. Are you going to vote for Biden or Trump?

And several others actually asked what I think is somewhat more interesting is, do Americans think that Donald Trump is guilty? Do you think that the trial was politically motivated? And we got some interesting polls that are also recontacting voters that they interviewed before the election, which lets us look at presumably real change in opinion, although there are some questions on whether or not these polls are

are truly representative. So I can go through those in any order that you want, Galen. All right, let's start with the real goods, what people are here for. How much has the head-to-head polling shifted in the past four days? The real goods, yes, good framing. So the Ipsos Reuters survey before the conviction, this is the poll, I'm going to say before the conviction, it wasn't necessarily right before the conviction, it's just the latest poll from that pollster before the conviction. So Ipsos Reuters was even.

And after the conviction, it's Biden plus two. So that is a plus two in the Biden column. There was a survey from Harris X in Forbes that was Trump plus two before the conviction and Trump plus two now. So no movement in opinion, according to Harris X. Morning Consult, an online poll, was Trump plus one the week before the conviction. And it was Biden plus one in the weekly survey that has come out.

completely after the conviction. So I guess they did a small sample on Friday. And there was a poll this morning from TIPP Insights that had Biden plus one before the conviction and is even now. So a minus one change. So it should be noted, all of these changes are within each poll's margin of error. They average out to about a one percentage point change

opinion, and the 538 aggregate has changed by about half a percentage point in Biden's favor. But we're looking at small changes within the uncertainty interval for all of our various metrics, according to these surveys so far. So, Elliot, let's put that in lay language. Is this nothing? Should people make nothing of this? Obviously, a shift

of one percentage point that endures is a big deal because it's only about one percentage point that separates Trump and Biden nationally, and just a little more than that, that separates them in the upper Midwest. Yeah, a percentage point or three quarters of a percentage point even could be the whole ballgame in the election. But only if it endures, right? Yeah, right. Only if it endures. So, I mean, I think when we're thinking about does this

change public opinion, we can measure things in direct and indirect effects. What we're trying to do is look at the polls immediately before and after and assess direct effects

effects on public opinion. And of course, those effects might decay. We'll have a pretty good guess in like two weeks over whether or not the race has really changed because of the verdict, and that will measure some indirect effects too. But there's going to be even more indirect effects over the actual campaign that has only just started and the five months remaining until election day. So

Maybe one percentage point now seems like a lot, but it gets swamped by the indirect effects. Maybe we get half a point now and it's two points later. We don't really know. So I think we have to just look at the so-called direct effects on the public opinion for now and kind of focus on that. And we'll deal with any downstream consequences when we get there. Yeah, I mean, another poll that came out was from ABC News, Ipsos, and it asked...

do you think the guilty verdict was correct? And also, do you think that this was politically motivated? And in both cases, the plurality of Americans said yes. So 50% of Americans said that the guilty verdict was correct. 47% of Americans said that it was politically motivated, which in some sense might sound contradictory. But on the other hand, if you know the details, some of the details about this case and

who brought it and exactly what legal theories it was brought on and things like that, you might say, well, if he wasn't the former president, I'm not sure this case would have been brought. But once it was brought, you know, looking at the evidence and the case that the prosecution put together, it may seem like he was actually guilty. And so I don't know that, like,

Americans are contradicting themselves there so much as, I don't know, maybe even representing a somewhat nuanced opinion? Yeah, I think the nuanced opinion here should be like the DA campaigned partially on prosecuting Donald Trump for this and similar crimes. And while he shut down a grand jury inquiry into other behavior by Trump, he, you know, really publicly championed this prosecution. I think we can acknowledge that. It seems like voters have acknowledged that that

could have some politics behind it while also agreeing that the verdict is correct. As you say, that does seem...

you know, maybe more nuanced than people expect from the average voter, but it doesn't seem contradictory or mutually exclusive. Another poll just on this from CBS News, they recontacted voters as well. So they did a poll before the election, or sorry, before the conviction. I'm in election mode already, see? And then recontacted those same people they interviewed, or as many as they could get on the phone or in their case online. And they asked them before,

do you think Donald Trump is guilty of this thing he has yet to be convicted of? And just over half the country said yes. And then after they asked, do you think the jury reached the right verdict? And just over half also said yes, and that the trial was fair. So again, maybe people are acknowledging that there could be some political motivations behind a Democratic DA in Manhattan bringing these charges, but also feel like justice was served. That is what the average American is saying.

Echelon Insights also did a poll where they recontacted respondents after this verdict came out. And in the most recent results prior to the verdict, they had a 47-47 split in terms of support for Biden and Trump. And afterwards, it was a 49-47 split in Biden's favor. So showing a two-point shift towards Biden, which is a big thing.

mimic some of the broader trends that we've seen in head-to-head polling. You were talking about some indirect effects of all of this. What did you mean when you said that? Like, is there a broader takeaway from all of this? Yeah, I just meant, you know, the news cycle will have knock-on effects. The conviction might change public opinion in two weeks, but the ability for the Biden campaign to campaign on this might activate...

Maybe I'm just hypothesizing to give you an example might activate low information Democrats who now see this election as Biden versus Trump or whatever. And then that has a slow trickle of opinion towards the Democrats over the rest of the campaign. That's the type of thing I'm referring to when we say indirect effects.

Can I just say, I think what's really interesting about this Echelon Insights survey, notwithstanding that it's a recontact poll, so there's some potential selection error in who agrees to be surveyed again on this topic. You can imagine that...

That like Trump voters aren't going to want to take a poll the day after their party leader is convicted of 34 felonies or what have you. We call this non-response bias. That would be, yeah, heightened non-response bias, non-ignorable non-response, even though you're interviewing the same people. The type of people who agree controlling for even being interviewed already, right?

can be biased. So that's just a point to say, like, it might not be representative of overall opinion. It does have in its favor that it matches the direction of opinion change on the average poll. But anyway, that's my big caveat. What's really interesting here is that the Trump number is the same, 47% before, 47% after. But Biden's vote share increases by two points.

I've certainly seen for a while now theories that Biden's numbers in the polls are deflated by Democrats who are expressing protest of the president. And so they say they won't vote or they'll vote for Trump, but they're somewhat disingenuous about how they'll actually vote in the election. This would suggest that those voters are, as we say, coming home, that they may increasingly see the election as a Biden versus Trump election. And so what

scoot over to the Biden camp instead of a referendum. Now, again, it's just a theory. It points in that direction. I think that's something for people to watch over the next couple months. Yeah, and there's one more thing I want to say on this, which is that we're talking about some relatively small shifts here, which, yes, if durable, could be in some ways decisive. But perhaps more importantly, I think the general vibe surrounding this case, if I can use a colloquial expression, is

does really get at the heart of this election, which is that when you ask about policy questions that are most important to Americans, like the economy, immigration, crime, Americans strongly prefer the former president, like by a 20-point margin in many cases on things like the economy and immigration. Yet we're still looking at a really close election.

So, you know, why is that? And YouGov did a really good poll, I think, a little while ago that asked Americans, do you see Biden as fit or unfit for the presidency? Do you see Trump as fit or unfit for the presidency? And then asked people who said unfit why? And they could offer their own responses. And the most common response to that poll for people who saw Trump as unfit for the presidency was that they viewed him as corrupt and dangerous, right?

all of these cases, potential trials surrounding Donald Trump get at something deeper, which is that while Americans may think that the economy and international conflicts and the situation surrounding immigration were better during Trump's tenure, they also see him as somebody who is corrupt and dangerous. And that is going to underlie this entire election, in that even if people have sincere doubts about the current president's policies on a whole host of things,

they have also this sense, this negative sense about Trump that gets beyond policy. Yeah, I mean, Biden's biggest weaknesses in the personality dimension are like his age, I guess, being the biggest one. And then the status quo for lots of Americans, which has been for most of his term, high inflation and an economy that's recovering from a very horrible global pandemic.

All right, Elliot, before I let you go, I'm going to ask you to be a Mexican election expert for a moment. So, Claudia Scheinbaum beat Xochitl Galvez and Jorge Alvarez-Meynez, getting close to 60% of the vote. First and foremost, how did the polls do? Yeah, well, I looked up the aggregators in Mexico, of which there is...

a hearty supply. And they all found opinion on the eve of the election around mid-50% for Scheinbaum. In fact, she won this election by about 30 percentage points, 58% of the popular vote for herself and 28% for her nearest competitor. Actually, it's 59% now. The votes are still being counted. So that's a pretty large polling error. If there was a 10% error

On margin in America, people would freak out. We'd be out of a job, Elliot. Well, hey, don't write us off just yet. I mean, there's some considerations. There's an undecided population, so it's never going to translate one-to-one. But yeah, they did significantly underestimate...

Scheinbaum's margin, which maybe you'd expect given her party is sort of a populist leftist party. Maybe they're not responding to polls. Maybe there are other types of people who get interviewed, you know, whatever. I'll let the pollsters diagnose that over the next six months or so. But it's certainly an impressive victory and it defied expectations somewhat. Although I will say the probability of her victory in any of the forecasts was close to 100% given said 20 percentage point lead in all the aggregators.

You know, there are lots of folks who know a lot more about Mexican politics than we do. But I'll just say here that, you know, she ran as the heir to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's Morena party. What does that mean as far as maybe American politics are concerned? Going back to what I just said about Joe Biden suffering from the status quo, AMLO was...

essentially his party was rewarded for it. I mean, his approval rating is 60%. That's the third highest in the world, according to Morning Consult, second to the new president in Argentina, who might be enjoying some sort of early presidency bonus, and Narendra Modi in India, who is

You know, has commanded essentially historically high approval ratings from the Hindu majority in the country for quite some time. So to be at 60% after six years is huge. And it's a testament, you know, the election results show of the reward that you get from your voters for tripling welfare spending, for inviting a lot of foreign direct investment from countries like the United States,

in Canada for factory building and other works for putting a lot of infrastructure spending so people can see the impacts of your presidency. And the economic recovery in Mexico is better than most pure Western countries from the COVID baseline. So if you're the so-called successor to that president, you got a pretty good shot. His approval rating is 60%. Scheinbaum just won 59% of the vote. So

Yeah, it's somewhat, I think, what we should expect. Now, whether or not she can continue passing all those huge reforms of the Mexican state, it might be hard. There's a limit on what people...

theoretically can stomach in terms of their government changing, but they haven't hit it yet in Mexico. Oh, and the other thing too, right? She's an environmental engineer PhD. She worked for the IPCC, the international governmental body that published a Nobel-winning climate change report in 2007.

So we should expect some change in the environmental policy in Mexico, which is huge right now because Mexico City is in a historic drought where she was up until now the mayor. So we should expect some shift, I think, in environmental policy as well.

The last thing I'll say here from an American perspective is we talked a lot about immigration around the beginning of the year, and that's because there were record-breaking levels of encounters at the southern border, you know, above 300,000 in December, which sort of blew the record of

during past presidencies out of the water. You know, Biden was routinely seeing 150,000 encounters at the border monthly, whereas during Trump and Obama's presidencies, things maxed out around 50,000 encounters at the southern border were around there. And since then, folks may have noticed that the issue has faded a lot from the headlines, and that's in part because Mexico has been doing a lot to stem the flow before it ever reaches the southern border of migrants, which has helped the Biden administration

administration in terms of the news cycle and what we're focusing on and salience of the issue quite a bit. I mean, some people will say like the media is riling people up, particularly conservative media around the issue of immigration. But like the situation on the ground changed materially in a big way since Biden's presidency began. And that's evidenced by, you know, even blue state governors and blue city mayors really talking about this and making a stink about it.

And so whether or not that flow continues to die down will be in some ways up to the next president of Mexico. And so we will see sort of how she approaches the issue as well. And that may well have an impact on our election this November. Yeah. And, you know, Scheinbaum has said she's going to work with the next president, regardless of who they are, that their economy is

isn't in good shape and that they want tighter economic integration. So presumably the U.S. president has some

you know, some leverage there, especially with the amount of remittances going from the U.S. into Mexico these days. So yeah, I would expect her to work with Joe Biden, with Donald Trump if he's the winner, but we'll see. We shall see. All right, I'm going to let you go, Elliot, and some Supreme Court watchers are going to join me to play Guess What Americans Think. So thank you, Elliot. Oh, thanks. Sorry to miss the game. Sounds fun. Before we get to SCOTUS, a break.

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We're entering prime time for the Supreme Court to release opinions on some of the major cases it heard this session, including Trump's claim to immunity for official actions as president, regulation of the abortion medication Mifepristone, and debates over the Second Amendment.

Now, the Supreme Court is designed to be isolated from political pressures, and therefore public opinion on any of these cases may not matter to the justices or give any indication of how they'll decide a case. Although research does suggest that historically the court has been persuaded by the prevailing sentiment of the day on some of the high profile cases.

Nonetheless, we at FiveThirtyEight certainly do care about public opinion. So today we're going to play a game of Guess What Americans Think Supreme Court Edition. We've gathered data about the cases before the court and views of the court overall. And we're going to test today's panelists. And those panelists are politics reporter Kaylee Rogers. Welcome to the podcast, Kaylee. Hello. Also with us is polling editor at the AP, Amelia Thompson-DeVoe. Welcome back, Amelia. Thanks for having me.

And here with us for the first time ever is senior Washington reporter at ABC covering the Supreme Court, Devin Dwyer. Welcome, Devin. Hey, Galen. So before we kick things off, I just want to set the scene for the month of June.

How are we thinking about the slate of cases before the court this cycle? Small deal, medium deal, big deal, huge deal? Devin, why don't you kick us off? I think huge deal. There is no single case this term that has the scale of the Dobbs case a couple years ago, which everybody was fixated on. But the sheer number, I mean, I've covered the Supreme Court for six years, and I can't remember a time when so many landmark cases

rulings are expected. I think by my last count, 12 or so of the cases that we're still waiting for are high impact. I know that's subjective, but national, social, political significance on a big sweeping scale, more than a dozen, is highly unusual.

Everything from the Trump immunity decision, which you mentioned at the top, to two abortion cases, January 6th cases, two gun cases, healthcare cases. Can the Sackler family be sued for the opioid crisis? Can taxation of our unrealized sum in our investment accounts happen? Can Facebook and X be censored by states? Can governments lean on those companies? I mean, huge, sweeping, big impact decisions happening.

And there's only five weeks, four weeks now until the end of the Supreme Court's term. And all of those could be like a big train wreck at the end. I think it's I think it's a huge, huge year. Well, I we're all thinking about what our lives are going to be like at the end of June, waiting for like the final week. And it's like we still have six landmark cases left to get opinions on. Don't screw up my Fourth of July. The Supreme Court justices observe the Fourth of July as well. I'm sure they also want to be done by then.

Yeah. Amelia, how are you thinking about this? Are you on the same page as Devin? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a big term. I think in terms of public opinion, there are fewer cases that I would expect Americans to have a really developed opinion on or that honestly where the impact will register with them, as in they will understand that there has been a ruling that will affect their lives.

If you're talking about the impact of the cases on the country, big term. If you're talking about the impact of the term on, for example, how Americans think about the Supreme Court, I think a lot will depend on how the court rules in a narrower space.

swath of cases, because I think there are a handful of cases that will sort of rise to the attention of the everyday American, but not all 12 of the ones that Devin was just talking about. And I think, Amelia, you're probably talking in large part about cases related to Trump immunity and January 6th. And Kayleigh, that's something that you have been tracking for a while, those cases, particularly of people who entered the Capitol on January 6th.

You know, what are you thinking about about how that's all going to turn out? Yeah, I mean, I would agree that these are all I mean, those are among these large impact cases that we're hearing. I think Amelia is right that part of the problem is because there's so many of them, it kind of gets diluted. And because none of them have that sort of marquee like abortion Dobbs decision involved.

Or, you know, legalizing gay marriage or something like that kind of like headline issue that everyone can kind of wrap their head around and understand. It's just going to be harder for the public to engage with it unless they are personally affected. So if it's, you know, if you are a January 6th defendant or you know one or someone in your family is...

then, yeah, you're probably going to be paying a lot more close attention than sort of the average person would be to that case in particular. You know, if you work at a fishery that's subject to inspections from the APA and you don't want to keep paying for them to do those inspections, you're going to be paying a little more closely attention to the Chevron case than sort of the average person as well. You know, there's groups of people that are going to be watching closely and that will understand the impact, but sort of the average American person

just kind of going about their day. I don't know how deeply informed they are on these issues. And it's a subjective measure, but it does seem, Kayleigh, that the two perhaps biggest political impact cases and real-life impact cases are the two abortion cases.

which is going to be fascinating to see with those decisions coming out just a couple months before the election. But can the abortion pill remain widely available for women in every state? Can women experiencing emergencies, even in states where abortion is banned, get access to the procedure in an emergency? I mean, those are the two big issues.

high-impact ones that play right into the hands of the campaign narratives, I think that will be most significant. But yeah, there are a lot of others that have sort of smaller constituencies.

All right, so let's dive into our game of Guess What Americans Think, and we will talk about the details of some of these cases as we go. So a quick refresh of the rules. I'm going to ask you how Americans feel about a particular case or about the court in general. You are going to guess a percentage by writing it down and then showing me on the count of three. Whoever is closest gets a point. Prices, right rules do not apply. You are allowed to go over. We're

with no penalty. All right, so is everyone ready? Let's do it. Let's do it. So ready. Here we go. Okay. And of course, there may be a numerical winner or loser, but everyone is ultimately a winner in my heart and our listeners' hearts. So, you know. There are no losers, but there is one winner. Yeah, I don't... I think you just raised the stakes with that, Galen.

Okay, here we go. First question. According to FiveThirtyEight's court approval tracker, what percentage of Americans currently approve of the Supreme Court? Three, two, one, reveal. Ooh, we have, all right, pretty close. Amelia at 40%, Devin at 38%, and Kaylee at 48%.

You all overestimated how popular the court is today. Devin, you were the closest, so you get the point. It is 34% of Americans currently approve of the Supreme Court. That is a record low as long as we have been tracking opinions of the court.

And of course, Gallup has been tracking this a lot longer than we have. And so by comparison, if you go back to the beginning of the century, so September of 2000, 62% of Americans approved of the court.

and only 30% disapproved. And even after the court decided, you know, the major case surrounding the 2000 election, that dropped off almost not at all. So we are at a moment, a unique moment in terms of how Americans are thinking about the court. What's the disapprove number? Right, because you could say you don't have an opinion. It's really high. It is 50%.

57% of Americans disapprove. Wow. That's really high. Huh. Okay. Interesting. All right. So one point for Devin. We are moving on. What percentage of Americans, according to Pew, view the Supreme Court as conservative? You could pick either conservative, middle of the road, or liberal. Three, two, one, reveal.

All right, we have 55% from Amelia, 62% from Kayleigh, and 70% from Devin. Amelia, you get it. It is 50% of Americans view the court as conservative. I think it's middle of the road. So 40% say that it's middle of the road, and 7% say that it's liberal. I should also say, though, this is a 30 percentage point increase of...

Americans saying that it is conservative. So back in 2020, even though the court had had a conservative majority for a long time at that point, 30% of Americans said that it was conservative and

56% said that it was middle of the road. So, like, to me, that means we were talking about what kinds of cases break through in the public consciousness and change public opinion. I have to think this is the effect of the Dobbs decision. There was also some research, though, right, showing that after Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, it was more in line with the views of Republican candidates

voters than it had been before. So I think it's both that the cases are breaking through more. I think that's right, Galen. But also, I mean, it was a different kind of conservative court before 2020. It was a conservative court, but not the way it is now.

So, Amelia has one point. Devin has one point. Kayleigh, let's get you on the map here. There's no losers, right? Exactly, exactly, exactly. What percentage of Americans favor congressional action to set 18-year term limits for current and future Supreme Court justices?

Three, two, one, reveal. Ooh, Kaylee. Ooh. We got 57% from Devin, 70% from Amelia, and 71% from Kaylee. Boxing, trying to box Amelia out there. I know. It feels very personal, Kaylee. It's like the price is right, you know?

One dollar. You got close here, although Amelia wins it. It is 64% of Americans favor term limits. So you all thought that Americans were pretty amenable to term limits. Explain yourselves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Americans like term limits kind of in general. Yeah, Americans do like term limits. And logistically, this is never going to happen? I mean, it could happen, but...

But practically speaking, it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which that could happen. I think it would take another Democratic trifecta in Washington to be able to even approach that because Republicans aren't going to go for it while they have this court. And that's why I thought it was pretty evenly divided. You know, in the Biden administration,

White House put together that Supreme Court commission. They studied this, and they put out that voluminous report on term limits and expanding the court. And it got a real tepid response. But the one proposal that was most popular was term limits. But even there, I think at the time, I saw polling and Republicans, because they're happy with how things are. And your question, Galen, was current and future justices. And I think nobody, if you're

a conservative wants to see these future or these current justices cut short. All right, next question. What percentage of Americans say that the selection and confirmation of Supreme Court justices will be an important consideration for them in voting for both president and U.S. senator in 2024?

Three, two, one, reveal. 53% for Devin. We have 36% for Amelia. And we have 74% for Kaylee. Kaylee, did you look at this? It is 74%. Exactly. Is that your victory dance, Kaylee? Yes. I'm on the board.

I want to know what other issues people said and what was it like 90 percent for the economy? That is a great question. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say that the court will be very important to them, which is a change from the trends that we usually expect in terms of who prioritizes the Supreme Court in how they vote. Kayleigh, congratulations. You're on the board. Amelia has two. Kayleigh has one. Devin has one.

Let's dive into some of the specific cases that the court has been considering this term. And we'll begin with Trump's immunity case, which is Trump versus the United States. And it asks whether a former president has immunity from criminal prosecution for acts taken while in office. What percentage of Americans say that former presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution?

Three, two, one, reveal. Ooh, all right. Devin coming in hot. We got 90%. Then we have Amelia at 75% and Kayleigh at 68%. Amelia gets it. It is 74% of Americans said that former presidents should not have immunity. Question here. When we talk about what's going to break through and shape partisan opinions of the court, this is a big one.

First of all, the Supreme Court did have the option to rule quickly on this to try to allow the January 6th federal case to go forward before the election. What do we make of the fact that we were waiting now until June, basically, to hear anything about this? Since the beginning that this issue came to the Supreme Court, remember when Jack Smith asked them to expedite hearing this, the conservatives have shown no indication of

wanting to look at this case through the lens of an election year decision. They're in no hurry. It's pretty clear to me, and especially from the oral argument that we heard, that they don't even want to consider—they don't see this case—

in any way really about Donald Trump and about the election and about Jack Smith and needing to get it out quickly. They see this as about some big historical landmark question that happens to involve Trump in this case. And so they're going to take their time. There's all this spitballing about when a decision will come, will they hurry up and could they get it out by the beginning of June so that a trial could go forward. I think this is going to come almost at the end of the term, if not one of the last cases. I think...

All nine of them are going to want to write something. All of them are going to want to say something. There's so much that they want to put down in ink. They don't want to rush it because they know it's going to be such an, you know, historical decision. And I think it was pretty clear for those who didn't really follow it at the time that

the court's going to rule against Donald Trump's claims of absolute immunity. I mean, I don't think any of them showed any indication of buying that. But it also seemed clear that the conservatives were willing to narrow the scope of what Jack Smith had gone after Donald Trump with and sort of put some boundaries around what sort of an immunity a former president can enjoy. And I think in those joints is where they're probably working right now, and they're going to take their time.

You know, from a public opinion perspective, I think this one is really interesting because, as Devin was saying, it seems possible, likely that the justices will come out with some version of no, Trump's argument on immunity does not stand. But they can also rule in a way that basically

basically ensures the case will not go to trial before the election, which is what Trump wants, right? Like he's kind of like a master of the delaying technique in court. You know, they can have like the headline finding of, you know, we're not siding with Trump's argument or we're only siding partially. But, you know, they could bounce it back to the lower court. They could take a lot of different actions here that would basically mean,

This trial doesn't happen before the election. And I'm really curious how Americans will think about that and receive it, because we do know from polling that people want these cases to happen before the election, or many people do.

Yeah, so there are certainly moral victories for Trump that fall short of a headline victory for Trump in this case. And because you brought this up, Amelia, and you asked, was Trump named in the poll specifically? I'll say a recent Marquette Law poll found that 29% of Republican voters supported presidential immunity for former presidents.

When the wording changed specifically to former President Donald Trump, it was 61%. So obviously a big change there. All right, next question, which again gets at January 6th, Fisher versus the United States. The key question here is, were hundreds of January 6th rioters charged improperly with felony obstruction under a 2002 financial crimes law? And of course, the outcome of

this case could potentially upend the convictions of people who entered the Capitol on January 6th. So the question here, the way that it was phrased, was what percentage of Americans view the events at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, as criminal?

And here we go. Three, two, one, reveal. Ooh. Ooh, wow. We got a 65% from Amelia, we got a 68% from Devin, and a 69% from Kaylee. Wow!

And the answer is 71%. So, Kayleigh, you got it. Oh, go Kayleigh. I think we all won a moral victory on that one. Speaking of moral victories, exactly. Speaking of moral victories. All right, let's look ahead a little bit to how Americans might view the partisanship of the court going forward or how much trust they're putting in the court as we enter June. What percentage of Americans trust the Supreme Court

to issue a fair and nonpartisan ruling on the question of whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his actions related to the 2020 election and January 6th. What percentage of Americans trust the Supreme Court to issue a fair and nonpartisan ruling? Three, two, one, reveal.

We got a 30% from Amelia, a 32% from Kayleigh, and a 50% from Devin. The answer is 24% of Americans trust the Supreme Court to issue a fair and nonpartisan ruling against

46% of Americans say they don't trust. 29% of Americans say they are unsure. This is from Ipsos. So I would say the plurality say they don't trust, but a lot of people are also unsure. Here's a question. We've been talking about what breaks through, what doesn't.

the flag flown at Justice Samuel Alito's house that he said his wife put up and that he asked her to take down that sort of featured far-right symbols during the aftermath of the 2020 election. Some folks on the left have said that he should recuse himself. Of course, he said he's not going to. It's in the news. But is that the kind of thing that breaks through and shapes opinions of the court? You know, how are Americans processing that?

I don't think it's breaking through. I mean, if you look at name recognition of the justices, it's quite low. I mean, maybe...

With all the headlines about Clarence Thomas, you know, it's sort of I guess it's possible that there's been kind of enough stories that people are hearing about Supreme Court justices having various conflicts or having ethical issues. Maybe that as a whole is breaking through. But I would be surprised if the Alito flag breaks.

controversy was hitting people who didn't already have an opinion about him. I think it's just become such a reflection of existing divisions. And I think a lot of it's sort of, you see what you want to see. I'm surprised that it's that low, 24%. I was thinking, but it would have been more of an even divide, 50%. And I'm feeling naive because I'm so close to the court all the time. I see that this

conservative court has not been a rubber stamp for Donald Trump and Republican causes on so many occasions. In fact, already just this term, I mean, we can list

the high number of unanimous decisions, the fact that they rejected last term the independent state legislature theory, that they struck down this term Texas's right to enforce its own border laws. They're likely, like we've been talking about, to reject Trump's immunity claim. There's a whole list of things. Likely to uphold the bump stock ban. They're likely, or they just upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I mean, so many of the decisions that we're expecting are going to be wins for Biden.

the majority of them. But it's just this small number that get such high-impact attention that I think have sort of an overwhelming grip on people's sense of the court that sort of surprises me because I think it's actually more balanced on some of this stuff than people really think it is. I think

the Trump one is tricky, though, in particular, because that kind of cuts both ways. You obviously have Democrats or people who don't like Trump who are thinking that, you know, maybe the court's going to come out with a pro-Trump ruling, even if that's not

fair based on the court's previous actions. But also, I think you can get Republicans or Trump supporters who are worried that, you know, who think that the court should say that Trump is immune and they're not going to. So I think it might be especially low because people on both sides of the aisle have reason to be skeptical of the court there. So I think that this one might be a particular case.

Right, because of course, people who are paying attention saw Trump be pretty frustrated with the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the 2020 election when they sort of gave no time of day to his claims of

you know, his false claims of fraud. All right. So, Amelia, you have won this round of Guess What Americans Think SCOTUS edition. Thank you, Amelia, Kaylee, and Devin. Thanks, Galen. Thanks, Galen. Thanks, guys. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Trotavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 530.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.

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