Most Americans approve of the recent conviction of first son Hunter Biden and believe he should serve prison time — but don’t say the same for former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey in June found 60% of US adults said it was right for the president’s son to have been convicted of three felony gun charges — and 57% also said he should be sentenced to federal prison.
Among Democrats, 59% agreed with the June 11 verdict that Hunter lied about his crack cocaine addiction when purchasing a handgun in October 2018.
The Dems were evenly split (49%-49%) about whether the 54-year-old first son deserved a prison sentence for the crime.
Meanwhile, just 46% approved of Trump’s 34-count Manhattan felony conviction for falsifying business records to hide “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election — and 48% believe the former president should go to prison.
Democratic respondents, by 80% and 78%, respectively, agreed with those statements.
But half of all of the respondents disagreed (50%) and said the 45th president should not be sentenced to prison, including 86% of Republicans and 46% of independents.
At least 27% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s conviction May 30, while another 25% said they did not approve or disapprove.
By party affiliation, more Democrats backed Trump’s conviction and sentencing to prison than Republicans supported Hunter’s conviction and potential prison sentence.
Hunter Biden’s sentencing date has yet to be announced, while Trump’s sentencing was shifted back to Sept. 18 after the US Supreme Court ruled on a separate case concerning the former president’s immunity from prosecution for “official acts.”
Both men still face pending federal charges — the first son for allegedly evading $1.4 million in taxes; the former president for allegedly retaining classified documents and interfering in the 2020 election.
Whereas Hunter’s tax case will be heard in September, the two Trump cases are unexpected to occur before the November election.
President Biden has pledged to not pardon his son and to abide by the jury’s decision.
In September, Trump said it was “very unlikely” he would pardon himself if elected to another term in 2024 — but didn’t rule it out entirely.
The AP-NORC poll was conducted June 20-24 using landline and cell phone interviews to survey 1,088 US adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
