TIME TO LOOK AT POST-TRIAL TRUMP POLLS. Shortly after former President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts in a Manhattan trial, a trial millions of Republicans believe was politically motivated, this newsletter wrote, “It will take a few weeks to see if the verdict will have a significant effect on the national race.”

Now it has been two weeks. It’s still a little early, but we have enough polls, more than half a dozen since the trial’s conclusion, to see at least the beginning of the verdict’s effect. And that effect appears to be slight, if there is any effect at all.

Start with the usual variations in the race. All of the following numbers are from the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. On Jan. 1, Trump led President Joe Biden by 2.3 points, 46.6% to 44.3%. On Feb. 1, Trump’s lead was 1.8 points, 46.6% to 44.8%. On March 1, Trump’s lead was 2 points, 47.1% to 45.1%. On April 1, it was a point, 46.5% to 45.5%.

On April 15, the day jury selection began, Trump’s lead was 0.3 points, 45.2% to 44.9%. On May 1, midtrial, Trump’s lead was 1.5 points, 46.6% to 45.1%. On May 15, when the trial had been the subject of wall-to-wall news coverage for weeks, Trump’s lead was 1.1 points, 46.3% to 45.2%. On May 30, the day of the verdict, Trump’s lead was 0.9 points, 47.6% to 46.7%. And now, two weeks after the verdict, Trump’s lead is 0.8 points, 45.4% to 44.6%.

It appears that Trump’s lead, in the months before the trial, hovered around 2 points, maybe a little less. And now, since the trial began to consume the national news a week or two before it began and then since the verdict, Trump’s lead appears closer to a point. So it could be that the trial has made a difference of a point, or perhaps less.

Of course, it’s a close race, so a point is not nothing. But then there is the question of whether the trial effect, if that’s what it is, will last. One remarkable thing about post-verdict news coverage is how quickly it has returned to the news of the day. Trump visits Capitol Hill, Biden goes to Normandy — the news moves on. Yes, Democrats will take every opportunity to call Trump a “convicted felon” and make jabs about the case, but the fact is, the news moves on.

So it is not entirely clear that what we have seen since just before the trial began will continue as the campaign progresses. Also, all of the numbers above are from national polls. In the RealClearPolitics averages from the six battleground states we’ve been watching, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Trump maintains leads in all of them, from a margin of just 0.1 points in Wisconsin to 5.3 points in Nevada. There is less polling in each state than there is nationally, so we might not have the best picture possible. But Trump was leading before the trial, and he is leading after the trial.

In any event, the news moves on in the states, too. As the campaign goes into summer and then fall, Democrats will not let voters forget that Trump was convicted — after all, an elected Democratic prosecutor in deep-blue Manhattan did not twist himself into a pretzel to come up with charges against Trump only to see Democrats ignore the effort. So all voters will know that Trump was found guilty. Whether it will influence their decisions in November is another question altogether.