Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a New York jury found him guilty on Thursday of all charges in a hush-money criminal trial that centered on allegations that he falsified business records to hide hush-money payments to porn actresses ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is set to be sentenced just four days before the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, a development that is almost certain to change the tone of the nominating contest in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
In 2016, Trump became the first Republican in more than three decades to win the state in a presidential election year, but lost it four years later, throwing the state’s politics into chaos by trying to overturn his loss in court and making unfounded claims about the state’s voting system.
In interviews across the Badger State on Thursday, voters’ reactions to the convictions were as divided as the state’s politics.
“I’m speechless. I never thought he’d be convicted,” said Damon Anderson, 27, in Milwaukee. “I was rooting for Trump a little bit.” Anderson said he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 and doesn’t plan to vote in November.
“I don’t think I’ll ever vote again in my life,” Anderson said, adding that her mother took her to the polls in 2016. “I put my name down. I had to pretend I was doing something at the polls. My mom wouldn’t let me leave until she saw me fill it out…It had my name on it and my brother’s name, who’s the vice presidential candidate.”
“What game are we playing” by allowing Donald Trump to run for president while being a convicted felon?
The Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee in July, but Anderson doubts Trump will be the party’s nominee.
“You can’t (nominate him) anymore, can you? He’s been convicted. He can’t be president,” Anderson said, adding that he didn’t think Trump should have run while the case was still pending. “If we allow him to run, what game are we playing? What is going on? We’re in even more of a mess than we were before, and I think that’s frightening.”
Hannah Neese of Green Bay told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she followed the trial closely but wasn’t overwhelmed.
“I’m impressed that the court was able to select an impartial jury. While following this case, I felt more detached than previous controversies surrounding Trump because I truly believed he would not be found guilty, let alone guilty of all charges,” said Neese, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
Nease, 31, said she was shocked by the verdict and was curious to see how it would affect the November election. “I still believe the verdict is going to be a tough one to watch, but I believe in the jury’s decision and I think it was absolutely the right decision,” Nease said.
In nearby Appleton, 84-year-old Dorothy Turness said shortly after the verdict was handed down: “Justice must prevail, and it has.”
Waupaca County Republican leader denounces ruling as ‘abuse of justice system’
Joel Bartell, who works in medical equipment sales and is chairman of the Waupaca County Republican Party, called the decision an “abuse of the justice system” and said it could lead to conflict.
“This is an abuse of the justice system and will further deepen the divide between Republicans and Democrats,” Bartell, 50, said.
He said the ruling would create “further animosity” between the two parties.
The Brown County Republican Party similarly denounced the ruling in a statement, calling it an attempt by Democrats to “silence, oppress and even imprison his political opponents.”
“This unjust conviction should be made known to all Americans as a symbol of the corrupt, immoral and violent left-wing extremism that has seeped from the ivory towers of America’s universities to our institutions and courts,” the group said. “If Americans do not come together to fight this corruption now, it will be the end of our country.”
College students react to Donald Trump hush money case verdict
On the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, first-year graduate students Marianne Azeem Angel and Rusal Ferraz were sitting on the Memorial Union terrace when they saw the news of the convictions.
“I got texts from friends out of state saying, ‘It’s finally happened,'” said Ferras, who grew up in Georgia and followed the news about Trump’s election conspiracy allegations there. “It made something come out of it, and it wasn’t just a pointless deliberations.”
Midway through our conversation, a woman at the table next to us, who was reading the news for the first time, exclaimed aloud, “Oh my goodness!”
Both voted for Biden in 2020 and plan to vote again in the fall.
‘Travesty of justice’: Ron Johnson and other Wisconsin Republicans denounce jury decision
The sentence was widely condemned by Republicans as political retaliation from Democrats, with Sen. Ron Johnson calling the trial’s outcome a “travesty of justice” and Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of the 3rd Congressional District describing Thursday as a “dark day.”
Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Simming dismissed the ruling as a “weaponization of the federal judicial system” through a “sham trial.”
Asked if he thought the ruling would be politically beneficial for Trump, Siming accused Democrats of floating baseless impeachment threats since the former president announced his 2016 campaign and said he expected the ruling to be appealed.
“But someone suggested a while ago that they might have guaranteed him a win today, and that may be the case,” he said.
Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, the state’s longest-serving governor, said the ruling would be decisive in the 2024 presidential election.
“Donald Trump will almost certainly be elected the next president of the United States. I think people are going to see this trial as political retribution against Trump by the Biden administration and will vote accordingly.”
What will happen at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee?
Thompson said the tone of the Republican convention will be different after Trump’s ruling.
“I think so. I think this is just going to exacerbate the extreme hatred and extreme partisanship that we’re witnessing in this country,” Thompson said. “It’s not going to help the political situation in this country at all. I think the political situation is really serious. As someone who’s spent my whole life in this field, it’s really sad.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin said the ruling shows that “no one, including a former president, is above the law.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of the 2nd Congressional District posted a meme image of late-night comedian Seth Meyers saying he’s “totally guilty.”
Oshkosh Northwestern reporter Justin Marville contributed to this report.
