After a solid month of mostly negative and occasionally salacious testimony in the “hush money” trial of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee remains in a virtual dead heat with Democratic President Joe Biden.

According to our latest KSTP-TV/SurveyUSA poll, Biden leads Trump 44% to 42%, the identical result from our last poll in April just before the trial started.

The survey included 39% who describe themselves as Democrats, 35% as Republicans and 22% as independents

“This race is close,” says Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier. “It has been for several months. It’s come as a surprise, I think, to a lot of people in national politics. The Trump campaign now sees Minnesota as a real likely target for victory in the 2024 election.”

Trump is on trial for allegedly authorizing payments to keep salacious stories out of the news that could have impacted the 2016 presidential campaign and hiding the real intent of the payments.

We asked registered and likely voters who say they support Trump if their support would shift away from him if he’s found guilty. According to the poll, 88% said they would still vote for Trump. Zero percent would shift to Biden and 5% would consider shifting to another candidate.

Although that last number is small, Schier says it could have a big impact in a very tight race.

“A conviction in this trial could be a real problem for Trump,” Schier says. “It could make the difference between a narrow victory and narrow defeat in Minnesota.”

SurveyUSA interviewed 825 adults from the state of Minnesota from May 8-11. Of the adults, 710 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 625 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the November general election.

This research was conducted online, using a nonprobability sample of online adult panelists chosen randomly by Lucid Holdings, LLC of New Orleans. The combined pool of survey respondents was weighted to U.S. Census ACS targets for gender, age, race, education, and home ownership, and to recalled 2020 presidential vote.

View the full survey results below: