The Issues That Really Matter to Us (Hint Trump’s Conviction Isn’t One of Them) - Top 3 Takeaways – June 11th, 2024     

1. What really matters. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the most important thing that happened in your world yesterday didn’t involve former President Donald Trump’s probation hearing from Mar-a-Lago. In fact, I bet that it wasn’t even a top five concern of yours yesterday. And that makes you completely normal. For that matter just imagine what the life of the person is like whose highlight yesterday involved that probation hearing. It doesn’t exactly conjure positive images. It's the profile of the person who still neurotically sits next to a pile of masks muttering to themselves about the Bad Orangeman. No, rather than Trump’s hearing you’re likely far more concerned with being able to afford to pay the bills and the safety of your family. This by the way is an example of what separates you, who are representative of the real world, with legacy news media types. But speaking of legacy news media the contextual questions from CBS’s most recent poll tell the real story about what really matters to us across the country. The overwhelming answers aren’t anything to do with Donald Trump’s conviction. It’s become quite clear that Trump’s conviction won’t hand Joe Biden the election and that was evident in CBS’s surveying. In a line of questioning about how important issues are to your vote this November, 81% of respondents said the economy, while 75% cited inflation specifically as a top concern. 62% of voters say that crime will be on their minds as they go to vote with 56% specifically saying that border policy will influence their vote. As for those who will factor Trump’s conviction into their vote? The survey says...28%. That’s it, barely more than a quarter of voters. Or to put it another way, about a third of the people who will be voting based on the economy and right at half of the number of people who will be voting based on border policies. But what’s most instructive to me isn’t the 28% figure. We all know that Joe Biden could be on life support on Election Day, and he’d still win over 28% of the vote (which perhaps isn’t the best example given how real the possibility of that sounds). What was most interesting to me is to see... 
2. How many people may really have been motivated by the conviction. The answer appears to be 2%. Why 2%? In other contextual polling CBS asked how you would best describe Biden and Trump - throwing out adjectives for voters to compare. Trump beat Biden out on being the most competent by 9-points, on effectiveness by 14-points. 38% more voters said Trump was the tougher president of the two and then there was this. When asked if you would describe Donald Trump as energetic, 61% of voters said yes. When asked if Joe Biden is energetic... 26% of voters said yes. There can be no doubt that if you describe Joe Biden as energetic A) You know you’re lying when you said it and B) You are most likely the person Governor DeSantis once described as a six-masked hermit (which btw, upon reflection still is and probably and will forever be my favorite DeSantism). Clearly 26% of voters sampled by CBS News are prepared to vote for Joe Biden whether he’s dead or alive if he’s on the ballot. Within the survey sample they’re most certainly also the people who’ve said that Donald Trump’s conviction will be important to their vote this November. That only leaves an additional 2% of voters who didn’t knowingly lie to a pollster about Joe Biden’s vitality that seem to care about the Trump conviction. And what were the odds they were going to break for Trump in the end anyway? This is not only why Trump continued to show a lead in the CBS poll but also why Trump a week and a half after the conviction continues to lead in an average of all polls. But there was one other result in the CBS sampling that didn’t require additional analysis in order for it to tell a powerful story.  
3. By a margin of 62% to 38%, voters support Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan. The way the question was framed was this. Would you support a new national program to deport all undocumented immigrants? Again, 62% said yes. That’s a number that’s large enough to cut across the political spectrum. Yes, the overwhelming number of Republicans support the proposal but large numbers of independents and even many Democrats back a plan to not only secure the southern border but also to send everyone who’s come across it illegally back over it. It’s by far the largest surveyed support I’ve seen on a question framed that way and it takes us back to where we started with today’s takeaways. At this point just about everyone knows that what happens at the southern border doesn’t stay at the southern border and the effects of Biden’s border policy has had and is having a negative impact on our lives. On the issues that matter the most to most Americans, the policies of the former and perhaps future President of the United States are solidly favored in almost all of them. And notably what just showed up in CBS’s latest poll is also what voters in Europe just voted at the polls in a historic result creating the most conservative voting bloc in the history of the European Union. The issues that really matter to us, and for that matter to people around the world, have nothing to do with Donald Trump’s conviction, but they could lead to a great deal of conviction for voters to bring back the president who will address them this November.