Being convicted of 34 felonies is not *good* for Trump

Whether these impacts will have any enduring impact or turn out to be material is of course a very open question, but there’s at least some evidence that Trump’s conviction by a jury of his peers has moved the needle a little bit toward Biden:

It’s one of the biggest questions in the wake of Donald J. Trump’s conviction: Did the verdict change anyone’s mind?

Early on, the answer appears to be an equivocal “yes.”

In interviews with nearly 2,000 voters who previously took New York Times/Siena College surveys, President Biden appeared to gain slightly in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s conviction last week for falsifying business records.

The group favored Mr. Trump by three points when originally interviewed in April and May, but this week they backed him by only one point.

While there’s no way to be sure whether their views reflect the broader electorate, the findings offer unusually clear evidence that the verdict has led some voters to reconsider their support for Mr. Trump.

Overall, Mr. Trump retains 93 percent of voters who told us they backed him in a previous survey — a tally that’s yet another striking show of political resilience from a candidate who is facing three more sets of criminal indictments.

But in a close election, losing 7 percent of your supporters can be decisive. In recent polls, Mr. Biden either leads or is within two points of Mr. Trump in states and districts worth the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency. A potentially crucial sliver of Mr. Trump’s former supporters — 3 percent — now told us they’ll back Mr. Biden, while another 4 percent say they’re now undecided. (The overall shift is closer to two percentage points because it also accounts for the smaller slice of voters who moved away from Mr. Biden when contacted again.)

It’s a marginal effect at best, but the last two presidential elections were very much decided at the margin.

In related news, Aileen Cannon might prove to be Trump’s most important judicial appointment outside the Supreme Court.