At the Democratic National Convention in August, supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris seized on former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction in his New York hush money case, chanting “lock him up.”
If Trump wins the presidential election, he would be the first convicted felon who was elected president. But Harris does not mention the conviction as she campaigns. Instead, she speaks broadly of Trump’s scandals and fitness for office, while highlighting her own record as a prosecutor.
“For decades as a prosecutor and a top law enforcement officer of our biggest state, I won fights against big banks that ripped off homeowners, against for profit colleges that scammed veterans and students, against predators who abused women and children,” Harris said in a speech this week.
Mordecai Lee, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said research by Harris’ campaign likely shows Trump’s legal woes are not a big issue for the undecided voters she’s courting.
“She doesn't want to cross that line,” Lee said. “It's got to be that when she's talking to the public at large, she's concluded that using his convictions doesn't work, and it's a waste of breath and a waste of time and waste of money.”
Lee added that Harris’ campaign is learning from Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016.
“When Hillary Clinton ran against him, she tried to make him the issue. This was a referendum on Donald Trump. Now, of course, you didn't have those same legal problems, but by making it exclusively a referendum on him, it turns out that instead of it being an easy political win, it was a political loss, that making him the issue did not work for her, and that perhaps she should have focused more on the issues,” Lee said.
“[Harris’ campaign is] learning that they can attack Trump a bit, not on these legal issues," Lee added. "They can do it sort of in a roundabout, indirect way, but they've got to also stick to some issues. There's got to be a reason to vote for her, as opposed to a reason to vote against him.”
Trump has been indicted in three other cases, including two federal cases brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith – one accusing him of working to subvert the results of the 2020 election, and another that charges him with mishandling classified documents and hampering the government's efforts to retrieve them.
All of the remaining cases are mired in delays, and the documents case was dismissed by a Trump-nominated judge in Florida, though the Justice Department is appealing that decision.
As the charges piled up, the prosecutions seemed to help him in the Republican primary for president earlier this year.
As for the 34 felony counts, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced days before Thanksgiving.
“I think if he loses, that one will very likely go forward,” said John Acevedo of Emory University’s School of Law. “If he wins, the judge may ask for more time, and I think it'll depend a lot about what the sentence is going to be. If there's going to be any restrictions, term of imprisonment, house arrest, anything like that, I think we'd see a deferment. If it's going to be something like simple probation or a fine, then I think the judge may just go forward with it and just wrap up the case.”
If Trump is elected, he could nominate an attorney general who might dismiss the felony cases against him.