Independents favor Trump by 12 points despite guilty verdict: I&I/TIPP poll

Donald Trump is leading incumbent President Joe Biden among independent voters in a new poll released after his guilty verdict on Thursday. The results come after millions in donations came pouring in after he was convicted, in what many saw as a political court decision.  

According to a recent poll from Issue and Insights/TIPP, Trump has made gains against Biden in the court of public opinion despite being found guilty in the NYC falsified documents case. Among independent voters, Trump leads Biden with 38 to 26 polls going into June. The national poll was conducted between May 29 and 31 of 1,675 registered voters with a margin of error of 2.5 percent and the verdict, issued on May 30, did not seem to weaken his support.  

In the last poll conducted by Issue and Insights, Trump was down 40 to 42 points overall against Biden. That now sits at a tie a 41 to 41 split between the two candidates. When that is broken up into party affiliation, however, independent voters are drastically more in favor of Trump than Biden nationally, according to the recent poll with 38 percent going to Trump and 26 percent going to Biden. 22 percent of the independent voters are going with a third-party candidate and 15 percent are not sure.  

In May, that independent voter lead was only 33 percent for Trump and 25 percent for Biden, indicating a jump of five points from independents supporting Trump in that time period. Other recent polls have also shown stronger support for Trump among independent voters.  

The overall numbers are tied up at 38 percent between both Biden and Trump when the third-party members are also added to the mix. The poll also indicates that in terms of "strong" support versus "moderate" support in voter enthusiasm, Trump beats Biden with 65 percent of his backers "strongly" supporting him versus only 60 percent of Biden backers "strongly" supporting the incumbent president.