Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict upends a core Trump message: From the Politics Desk (2024)

Welcome to the online version ofFrom the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, we report Republicans' mixed response to a Delaware jury's finding Hunter Biden guilty on federal gun charges. Plus, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki breaks down the shifts among key demographic groups in the latest polls.

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Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict upends a core Trump message

By Jonathan Allen, Allan Smith and Katherine Doyle

Former President Donald Trump’s argument about the “weaponization” of the justice system just ran smack into a Delaware jury’s conviction of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

The result, according to some Republicans, is a major blow to one of Trump’s favorite talking points — and a boost to Biden’s case that he respects the rule of law.

“Hunter Biden’s conviction definitely weakens the argument,” said Dan Eberhart, a major Republican donor who backs Trump and thinks he should be focused on the economy rather than court cases. “To me, the justice system is working.”

The younger Biden, 54, was found guilty Tuesday on three counts related to his illegal purchase of a handgun when he was using narcotics. The elder Biden was a major proponent of the so-called Brady Bill, which made it a crime for addicts to buy guns, and it was a special prosecutor working under his Justice Department who prosecuted his son.

Last month, a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 counts related to falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a p*rn film actor. He faces charges in federal court over his retention of classified documents. And in separate cases in Georgia and at the federal level, he has been indicted on charges related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He has routinely accused Biden — without evidence — of directing a multi-jurisdictional legal campaign to take him off the political battlefield through criminal trials. But some Republicans say it will be hard to convince voters that Biden has turned the justice system into a weapon when his own son has now been struck.

That dynamic appeared to create a confusing complication for Republicans, who splintered in their responses to the Hunter Biden verdict.

Kash Patel, a former Defense Department official and a national security adviser to Trump, called it “a rare example of constitutional justice.” But Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called Tuesday’s outcome “nothing more than a distraction” from what she said are the “real crimes” committed by Biden and his family.

And Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida effectively yawned, posting on X: “The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.”

Read more →

Are demographic shifts in the 2024 polls a harbinger or a red herring?

By Steve Kornacki

The demographic shifts between the 2020 election and the current polling of the 2024 race have been consistent and clear. Trump has gained with nonwhite voters, while movement among white voters has been minimal — resulting in the near-tie with Biden we now see in national poll averages.

The debate is over whether those numbers are a harbinger of the November election — or a red herring.

One way of approaching this is to look back to the Biden-Trump race in 2020: What demographic splits were polls showing at this point — the middle of June — and how did they compare to the actual result? Take a look:

As you can see, Trump ended up performing even stronger among one of his core groups — white voters without college degrees — than polling was indicating. And the same went for Biden with one of his core groups, Black voters. Each candidate, it seems, benefited from a “coming home” effect, with their bases solidifying once Election Day arrived.

Notable, too, is that polling at this point in 2020 was already pointing to gains for Trump among Latino voters. That 24-point deficit actually represented a double-digit improvement for him over the 2016 election result — and it proved to be no mirage on Election Day.

The biggest miss shown here is among senior citizens, with polling at this point four years ago putting Biden ahead of Trump. That suggested a major shift from 2016, when Trump easily won voters over 65, and it led to extensive news coverage about potential reasons for Trump’s decline. But in the election, Biden’s lead vanished, with Trump carrying seniors by only a few points less than he had in 2016.

Now let’s compare these 2020 numbers to what polling is showing right now:

If 2020 is a guide, there’s plenty of room for Biden to consolidate Black support and drive up his margin. The problem for him is that his starting point — a 55-point lead currently — is lower than it was in 2020. Just as troubling for Biden is that, once again, the polling suggests significant Trump gains among Latino voters, something that held up four years ago.

The concern from Trump’s standpoint would be the possibility that he doesn’t make any gains (or, worse, that he loses ground) among white voters, who are more than two-thirds of the electorate. Even marginal Biden improvement here could blunt the impact of any nonwhite gains by Trump.

And just like last time, seniors are a crucial mystery. As it did four years ago, polling points to meaningful Biden gains. Will that actually pan out this time around?

That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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