Donald Trump can still be president as a convicted felon


He’s not the first convicted criminal to run for office.


For the first time in history, a presumptive presidential nominee from one of the two major U.S. political parties is a convicted felon.


However, Donald Trump’s conviction in the Manhattan hush money case does not prevent him from running for — or potentially serving as — president. As a candidate for federal office, Trump is bound only by the requirements set forth in the U.S. Constitution. These requirements are simple: the president must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born U.S. citizen, and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. There is no stipulation regarding criminal convictions.


If Trump is sentenced to prison and also wins the presidency, it would create obvious practical challenges. It’s unrealistic for him to run the country from a prison cell, and some legal experts argue that this would trigger a constitutional crisis requiring his sentence to be suspended so he could fulfill his duties as president. The judge in the hush money case will deliver Trump’s sentence in a few weeks, which could range from up to four years in prison to no time at all.


While Trump is the first felon candidate with a feasible chance of winning the presidency, he is not the first criminal to run for the office. Notably, Socialist Party nominee Eugene V. Debs ran for president in 1920 from a prison cell while serving a 10-year federal sentence for urging resistance to the World War I draft. He garnered three percent of the vote.


Though Trump is not a Socialist, there are similarities between the two candidates. Both Trump and Debs leveraged their legal troubles to energize their supporters. Debs' supporters wore lapel buttons identifying him as “Convict No. 9653.” Similarly, Trump has made his four indictments a focal point of his 2024 campaign, even tweeting his Georgia mugshot defiantly. During his Manhattan trial, Trump delivered campaign speeches daily from behind metal barricades set up by court officers outside the courtroom.