The across-the-board guilty verdicts against former President Donald Trump on Thursday were met with a mix of shock, elation and sober reflection by politicians and political organizations across the Bay Area and Northern California.
Leaders throughout the heavily Democratic region and the state were swift and often unsparing in their reactions as America plunged into a new era with the first-ever felony conviction of a former president. True to the country’s ever-polarized nature, many local Democrats celebrated the jury’s decision to find Trump guilty of 34 counts related to hush-money payments made eight years ago, while numerous Republicans took to social media and vowed to vote for “a convicted felon” come November.
“This verdict is not a win for any single person,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, an East Bay Democrat. “It’s a win for an idea. The idea that we all follow the same rules. The rule of law won today.”
“Guilty,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the Burbank Democrat who was lead House manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial and is running for one of the state’s open U.S. Senate seat this November, posted on social media platform X.
“Today, twelve ordinary American citizens found a former president guilty of dozens of felonies,” Schiff wrote. “Despite his efforts to distract, delay, and deny — justice arrived for Donald Trump all the same. And the rule of law prevailed.”
Yet the chairwoman of the California Republican Party, Jessica Millan Patterson, derided the verdict as “a dark day for our justice system and for our nation” and suggested that the nation’s voters would see past the verdict at ballot boxes this fall.
“From the very beginning, this was a politically motivated case brought by a far-left district attorney,” Patterson’s statement said. “Despite Democrat-led efforts to interfere with the presidential election, Americans will have the final say in November when they re-elect President Trump and send him to the White House to fix the many failures of the Biden Administration and put our nation on a pathway to to success.”
The stunning verdict came after a New York jury deliberated for 9.5 hours; the jurors had heard weeks of testimony over whether the former president falsified tax records in a scheme to illegally influence the results of the 2016 presidential election.
The trial’s results leave Trump at risk of prison time when he is sentenced on July 11 — a never-before-witnessed prospect in American politics, given that Trump also is the leading Republican candidate for the White House in this fall’s presidential election.
Several Republicans reacted in disgust to the jury’s decision. Shane Patrick Connolly, chair of the Santa Clara County Republican Party, called the conviction on social media “a travesty of justice and the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships.”
Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, a Bay Area lawyer and former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, framed the verdict as “a disgrace,” adding that she was “ashamed” of the New York legal system, where she got her start as an attorney three decades ago.
“If they can do this to the leading presidential candidate, they can do it to any of us,” Dhillon tweeted.
Caitlyn Jenner, a longtime Republican who led an unsuccessful bid to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2021 recall election, posted a picture to X of her and Trump embracing, adding in all capital letters that “the only verdict that matters is the vote of we the people, of the USA, on November 5, 2024!”
The early reactions fit the nation’s increasingly polarized political climate and the “very firm hold” that Trump has over the Republican Party, said Melinda Jackson, professor of political science at San Jose State University. More interesting, Jackson said, is whether the verdict will have any impact on voters outside of Trump’s base who are less engaged and sitting on the fence.
“The hardcore partisans on either side have made up their mind on Trump many years ago,” Jackson said. “Even this historic conviction isn’t new information — it’s consistent with the things that voters have already known about Trump.”
“It’s the less engaged voters — the ordinary people who don’t spend all their time thinking about politics — who are going to notice this, since it’s a huge story,” Jackson added. “It’s never happened before. It was a unanimous verdict. It was a quick verdict. For those voters, this has a potential to really have an impact.”
In the hours after the jury’s verdict was read, numerous Trump supporters on social media made a point to post about their unwavering support for the former president. Among them was Sean McBride, a director of Ripple, a Bay Area crypto company, who said simply that “I live in the USA And I WILL DEFINITELY be voting for a convicted felon this November.”
A Bay Area venture capital firm partner, Shaun Maguire, touted a $300,000 donation to Trump immediately following the verdict, saying on social media that “The timing isn’t a coincidence.”
David Sacks, another Bay Area venture capitalist who’s hosting a June fundraiser for Trump, noted the contribution and predicted more would follow from Silicon Valley.
Yet many politicians across the reliably blue Bay Area heralded the unprecedented nature of Thursday’s verdict while suggesting that Trump was facing a reckoning years in the making.
Former San Jose mayor and current congressional candidate Sam Liccardo congratulated the New York jury “for delivering justice today.” U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, who representing San Mateo County, lauded the verdict and said “our justice system has prevailed.” Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents much of Silicon Valley, called it simply “a sobering moment.”
“I commend the brave public servants that worked to perform their civic duty under extraordinary circumstances,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, of Oakland and Alameda County. “Even a former president must be brought to justice.”
“I said it in 2018 and I’ll say it today: no one is above the law,” tweeted U.S. Rep Jared Huffman, who represents Marin County and much of Northern California’s coastal communities.
Added California Sen. Alex Padilla in a social media post of his own: “In the United States of America, no one is above the law — including a former president.”
Fellow California Sen. Laphonza Butler tweeted a similar sentiment, suggesting that “today’s verdict proves that ours is a nation of laws and it remains true that no one is above it.”
Bay Area News Group reporters Kate Talerico, Nollyanne Delacruz, Grace Hase and John Woolfolk contributed to this story, as did the Associated Press.