Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke for most of us when he famously quipped, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair … I can’t speak to that.” Few of us have actually found ourselves in such a position.
Still, that doesn’t keep us from having opinions on the thorny subject. A new survey of Florida voters by Sachs Media shows that Floridians’ views are both divided and complicated when it comes to the New York indictment of former President Donald Trump by a New York grand jury. Perhaps that’s because there are multiple questions at the heart of this issue, none of which are mutually exclusive.
For one: Did Trump in fact pay hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels to secure her silence about an affair? If so, did this constitute some type of felony — meaning that the indictment has legal merit — or simply suggest questionable character? And finally, regardless of the strength of the legal case against Trump, are the charges brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg politically motivated or brought in good faith?
The survey of 650 Florida voters, conducted April 7-10, reveals that almost three-quarters of Florida voters (74%) believe Trump probably paid hush money to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. It’s hard to get 3 in 4 Floridians to agree on much of anything, but this group includes 91% of Democrats, 84% of nonpartisan voters, and 50% — fully half — of Republicans. But that doesn’t mean the other half of Republicans believe the former President did not do this — fewer than 1 in 4 Republicans (24%) say Trump never attempted to cover up an affair with hush money, while about the same share (26%) say they simply aren’t sure.
