Right-wing media to blame for 'hard to fathom' poll results on Trump legal issues: analyst

Trump's ambition to return to D.C. while rowing through a legal gauntlet isn't playing a large role in many Americans' daily lives, nor is it dictating how they will vote come November 5, according to recent polling. But who's to blame?

"It seems very safe to assume this lack of familiarity derives from disinterest in hearing negative information about Trump — and, probably more importantly, the disinterest of conservative and right-wing media outlets to report on them," writes Washington Post columnist Philip Bump.

He pored over recent numbers from a Yahoo News/YouGov poll that offered a peephole into the interest and ambivalence of the country when it comes to Trump's legal battles.

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Most Americans, according to the poll, believe a conviction in any of the criminal cases would be a fair outcome for the 45th president. Yet Republicans, and especially those who voted for Trump last election, called it unfair.

"Makes sense, given that most Republicans say they haven’t even heard of the criminal trials," Bump noted.

In a twist, the poll participants give their takes on eight legal scenarios tied to Trump — but two of them were invented.

Those were: Trump facing charges for emoluments and another suggesting he's defending himself in a drug trafficking matter.

Bump noted that, "Happily, less than a quarter of respondents said those legal threats actually existed."

The other six though, Bump examines, "were real."

Of those half-dozen, most people — 6 in 10 Americans — were clued in with the former president being accused federally in Florida of hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

About 45 percent of Republicans were privy to Trump's legal issues beyond the documents case, and that was him being found liable for sexually assaulting and then defaming the columnist E. Jean Carroll.

The legal case with just under 50% of Americans' attention?

That's the $370 million civil fraud case currently awaiting a judge's ruling.

Bump saw that independents are divided down the middle in terms of awareness. However, he suspects that also means if a conviction were to come down the pipeline, there would be a "large group of Americans who might suddenly learn the details of what's been alleged" about Trump.

"That is the sort of thing that might have a measurable political effect," he writes.