2024 Wildcard: Trump criminal trial verdict throws 2024 presidential election into uncharted waters

Former President Donald Trump’s conviction in his historic trial in New York City is thrusting his 2024 election rematch with President Biden into uncharted waters.

Trump, who was the first former or current president to stand trial in a criminal case, has now become the first major party nominee to run for the White House as a convicted felon.

And the verdict of guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records could immediately impact the trajectory of the presidential race, where Trump currently holds the slight edge both in national polling and in public opinion surveys in most of the crucial battleground states that will likely decide the election.

But two-thirds of registered voters nationwide questioned in a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll released on Thursday – just hours before the blockbuster verdict – said a conviction in the trial would make no difference to their vote in the presidential election. Seventeen percent said a conviction of Trump would make them less likely to vote for him and 15% said they’d be more inclined to support the former president at the ballot box.

“If Donald Trump is a convicted felon going into the November election, that has to mean something to the small number of undecided voters in the six battleground states that will decide the election,” seasoned Democratic strategist Chris Moyer told Fox News.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TRUMP CRIMINAL TRIAL 

Moyer, a veteran of a handful of Democratic presidential campaigns, emphasized that “every little development in this race could push voters one way or another. Nobody wants to be a convicted felon when you’re putting your name on the ballot.”

Longtime Republican consultant Colin Reed acknowledged that it’s “never a good thing to be convicted, in life or politics, of a crime.”

“But the old rules and the old conventional way of thinking have…