NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Sentencing of Donald Trump in his New York hush money trial was delayed Friday until after November’s presidential election, a win for the Republican as he battles Democrat Kamala Harris in the knife-edge race.

The former president had been scheduled to be sentenced on September 18 for falsifying business records in a scheme to silence a porn star’s politically damaging story.

But Judge Juan Merchan postponed it to November 26 — well past the November 5 election, as requested by Trump’s lawyers.

“This is not a decision this Court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this Court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” he wrote in his decision.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of doctoring business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to stop her from disclosing an alleged sexual encounter on the eve of the 2016 election.

He was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

However, that was delayed after the United States (US) Supreme Court ruled that a former president has broad immunity from criminal prosecutions.

Trump’s lawyers asked that his New York conviction be dismissed following the Supreme Court immunity ruling. Merchan said he would rule on the dismissal motion on November 12.

The postponement comes as the already extraordinary White House race enters a newly tense phase, with Harris and Trump set to hold their first televised debate next Tuesday.

Hours before the ruling, instead of addressing key voter issues like immigration or the economy, Trump was in New York delivering rambling remarks about his myriad legal problems, as he denied multiple women’s accusations of sexual harassment or assault.

“This is not the kind of publicity you like,” Trump acknowledged from the lobby of Trump Tower, even as he spent an hour, unprompted, reminding voters of his extensive legal travails and accusations of rape and sexual assault by various women including the writer E Jean Carroll.

The legal drama unfolded on the day that the first mail-in ballots of the election had been due to be distributed.

The battleground state of North Carolina was scheduled to mail out around 130,000 absentee voting slips, marking the symbolic start of a nationwide process which during the bitter 2020 election saw 155 million Americans cast ballots.

However, a state appeals court halted the process after a last-minute lawsuit by independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is seeking to have his name removed from ballots. The fringe candidate from America’s most famous political family has dropped out and endorsed Trump.

North Carolina is among a handful of swing states that Harris and Trump have been crisscrossing as they embark on the most intense phase of an election expected to be decided by razor-thin margins.

Other states will soon follow in mailing out initial batches of ballots, and early in-person voting begins across 47 states as soon as September 20.

Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks later Friday in North Carolina.