Does Trump being found guilty actually matter?

its a big, spread out country. your experience isnt their experience. there is a non-zero number of people who will hear this, and it will affect their decision.

but they live in little bubbles of fake info, or at best, zero information regarding the world at large. we need to collectively address him as 'convicted felon donald trump' everywhere we can to get the message across, into those bubbles.

I've read that according to polls, it might sway about 6% of Trump voters. If that actually happens then yes, it would matter a lot for the outcome of the election. That's a big if though, so I guess we'll see.

I feel like a few might see a felony conviction as a "straw that broke the camel's back"

That does not matter to the case. Its justice, so it must be done. What the media and the public make from it might be another thing entirely of course.

Obviously it's not gonna sway anyone who's gonna vote for him

That's not true. You're likely exposed to a very biased sample, there are a lot of people who simply don't pay close attention to politics most of the time and may just now be getting the rude awakening that Trump really is a fraud. There are people who really will hold their vote over the candidate being a literal felon, and being in prison would hammer that home even more strongly.

1. First timer. Won't get jail time.
2. Most people made their minds up one way or another a long time ago.
3. It won't change many voters' minds, but on the other hand if the election's tight as the polls seem to suggest, a few thousand votes here, and a few thousand who don't vote at all, may actually determine the election result.

Yeah. It definitely matters. Republicans and voters who voted for him in 2016 or 2020 aren't a monolith. They are on a spectrum.

People change. People move on. People use lots of factors to decide what they think the best strategy is going to be.

There is a kind of recursive/ circular reasoning people use to determine who they support, which is specifically "how likely is this person to be elected?", their electability. People aren't willing to support a candidate if they don't see them as 'viable' (which itself is determined in-part by how much support a candidate has).

Being a felon is just, straight-up, a hit to electability. A felon Trump is fundamentally less electable than non-felon Trump.

There is some cohort of republican voters that will never move on from Trump. There is some cohort of republican voters that are barely attached to Trump. Most lay some where in between. I would guess that maybe 10-15% of Republican voters won't ever vote for anyone but Trump. Maybe the same percentage are barely attached to Trump (again 10-15%). If even 3-5% of Republican voters move away from Trump, heck if even 1% of Republican voters can be moved on this, that has big impacts because of the self-feeding nature of 'electability'. A 3% drop in polling for Trump can very quickly turn into a 5-10% drop in polling.

This ruling makes it just that much harder for Trump to grow his base.

It takes away time from campaigning and money raising. Sadly, the goal is not related to him. No one is paying attention to real issues and demanding accountability from Congress while all this is happening. This is the only factor that matters to the criminal oligarchy. Their goal is to prevent any forms of reasonable legislation that might restrict the loopholes they use to loot and pillage the rest of us.

Your question implies the answer is black and white, but its not. Its very complicated and uncertain and we've got to take a nuanced view of things.

Obviously it's not gonna sway anyone who's gonna vote for him

Its not this black and white. According to a poll: "only 4% of Trump’s supporters said they would withdraw their backing if he’s convicted of a felony, though another 16% said they would reconsider it." https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/6-months-out-tight-presidential-race-trump-biden-poll/story?id=109909175

This may or may not affect things - depends on how it plays out and where since swing districts usually decide preseidential electons.

is there any actual way this keeps him from office

There's multiple ways it could influence things beyond just changing voting decisions. It could lead to the campaign spending more money on legal fees for appeal and therefore less on ads, campaign rallies etc. It could also have the opposite effect of firing up Trump's base and leading to more donations, more votes and potentially political violence.

Its a situation that's never happened before, and its very complicated and uncertain. Anyone who says they have the answer is trying to sell you the fantasy of certainty in an uncertain world.

no. if he gets prison time, he will lose his right to vote during the period of incarceration, but that will be restored once he's released. that's if he gets locked up

if he is sentenced to time, and actually probably even if he isn't, they're going to do an immediate appeal, and most likely he will be out on bail during the appeal process. again, that's only if they were planning on locking him up in the first place

but no, there are only three qualifications for being president:

1. Be a natural-born citizen of the United States.
2. Be at least 35 years old.
3. Have been a resident of the United States for 14 years.

It doesn't matter to anybody who has already made up their mind to vote/not vote for him.

It matters that justice is done and that the system holds him accountable.

1. Most Americans already knew he was a criminal and either strongly opposed him or strongly supported him, in part on that basis. There are a lot of other people who usually or often vote Republican, but also just don't always vote. Those people aren't going to be enthusiastic about showing up to vote for a felon. I think we're looking at extremely low turnout among non-MAGA Republicans. Optimistically, this scenario can also lead to a blue wave as those same people skip down-ballot races as well.
2. First-time offenders get lighter sentences. He's going to be convicted in multiple upcoming trials, and in all of them he's now going to enter the sentencing phase as a felon. We can look forward to extended prison sentences in Georgia and the federal cases.

No, no it doesn't matter at all. I wish I was wrong, but I'm not. Rich, white, racist, bigoted, POS is a God in the eyes of those who would vote for him. He literally could murdered 20,000,000 people live on national TV and still his base would worship his diaper covered ass. Possibly more if the 20M were trans or POC.

Obviously it’s not gonna sway anyone who’s gonna vote for him

Haha this is trivially true because if they're gonna vote for him they won't be swayed! And if they won't be swayed they'll vote for him!

On the other hand, it will sway those who were going to vote for him but are not going to now that he's a felon. There will be some of those. Those who will be swayed, will be swayed!

It just feels like theatrics, something to grab people’s attention that will never have any real effect on Trump or his campaign

Trump is all about theatrics isn't he? But this conviction is a fact, not theater. This loss was not in the court of public opinion, but in a court of law. He can't buy his way out of this. He can't both-sides this.

I don't think there's any way this comes out better for Trump. Law and order types will have to work hard to justify rallying behind a felon. Business types too. Like it or not the word felon has a stigma to it, and Trump is tainted by that from now on.

Trying to find independent analysis that I read, but can't find it. This will likely have the most impact on swing voters in the 7 states, which are the most important voters in the US. Everyone else is much more likely to have already made their mind up. And remember about 50-66% of the registered voters in the US actually vote even in a presidential year, although the electoral college complicates the proportional representation of those voters.

From Washington post article

With 158 days until Election Day, he is fighting for a plurality of 30 million voters in seven battleground states — a far cry from the tens of thousands of Iowa party activists he courted a year ago. His advisers have long feared that a felony conviction could hurt Trump with independent voters, particularly skeptical suburban women. In places such as the Atlanta suburbs, those voters cost him the 2020 election.

Depends on what you mean by matter. The point of the criminal justice system is, theoretically, to determine who breaks the law, and to punish people who break the law. In that sense it matters because Trump was found guilty in a fair trial by a jury of his peers.

If what you mean is that it will change the politics of America, certainly. Trump is now running with the specter of a conviction hanging over him. Even assuming appeals and pardons, that fundamentally changes the nature of the election. It raises real and serious questions about how he could serve if under house arrest, parole, or in prison. It forces us to reckon with the balance of powers in this country - can a person dodge justice because they attain high office, or do we hold them accountable no matter what?

If what you mean is in reality, no it probably won’t do shit.

Sadly, no.

Only if new York decides to not count any votes for him

No, but it helps Trump. Look what happened with the mugshot and everyone who's not bias sees this has the Democrats trying to stop him from running.