Donald Trump ran on the platform of saying he is the victim of an unjust prosecution.
The criminal conviction of Donald Trump offers an amazing array of firsts in history.
He is the first US president, either in office or out of it, to be found guilty of a felony. In addition, he is the first presumed major-party candidate to have been convicted of a crime.
It's not too early to think about the political ramifications as Trump prepares to file an appeal in the hush-money case and awaits a judgment on July 11 that could theoretically involve jail time and a hefty fine.
But considering that this has never occurred before, it will be challenging.
"We often look to history to find some kind of hint of what's to produce happen," says Southern Methodist University's Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History. "However, nothing in the record even remotely resembles this."
It is just a few days after his punishment that Trump, who earlier this year won the Republican presidential nomination, will be celebrated at the party convention.
According to polls, he and President Joe Biden are statistically even and he has a little advantage in several of the crucial swing states that will determine the outcome of the election. However, the studies also show that all of it may be altered by this belief.
Double digits of respondents said in exit surveys taken during the Republican primaries this winter that they would not support the former president if he was found guilty of a crime.
According to an Ipsos and ABC News study conducted in April, 16% of Trump supporters said they would think twice about their support in such a circumstance.
But they were only theoretical beliefs. Additionally, he was being prosecuted in four other criminal investigations at the time, including one involving an alleged plot to rig the 2020 election results and another involving his handling of confidential information after leaving the White House.
These voters may now base their decision-making on a sincere belief.
Shortly after exiting the courthouse, Trump said, "The people will render the true verdict on November 5th."
Since the hush-money case involves activities that happened eight years ago, Doug Schoen, a pollster who has experience working with both independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic President Bill Clinton, believes that by then, American people may have fewer strong feelings about it.
"Being found guilty of a crime is not a good thing, but in November voters will be thinking about inflation, the southern border, competition from China and Russia, and the amount of money being spent on Israel and Ukraine," the speaker said.
But in the type of razor-thin race this presidential battle may become, even a little decline in Trump's popularity could matter. It may make a huge difference if a few thousand voters in crucial states like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania who would have supported the former president instead choose to remain at home.
Republican Women for Progress's co-founder Ariel Hill-Davis, who has worked to steer the party away from Trump, believes that it will hurt him as a candidate.
She claims that voters who are younger, more educated, and who reside in the suburbs have expressed worry about Trump's mannerisms and style of governance.
She claims that such folks are very reluctant to support Donald Trump's Republican Party. "Those concerns will be further reinforced by the guilty verdict."
However, prominent Republicans swiftly came together in support of him, with many attending the trial as a sign of their devotion to the party candidate.
The day in American history was deemed disgraceful by House Speaker Mike Johnson. "This was not a legal exercise; it was purely political."
Experts and Trump's detractors have been mistaken about the approaching political implosion for eight years. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was marred by scandals that would have destroyed a normal candidate, including as the Access Hollywood tape of him groping women, which was brought up repeatedly throughout this trial.
The majority of Mr. Trump's fans supported him through two impeachments and the stormy conclusion of his administration, which included an assault on the US Capitol by a mob of his followers.
Despite everything, the former president continued to pursue a political comeback that has placed him in a position to retake the White House in November.
"It's obvious now, but it's really amazing how Trump has managed to maintain his support in the face of a scandal that would have destroyed any other presidential candidate in American history," Mr. Engel adds.
This historic criminal conviction could turn out to be different, especially if Trump's appeals are denied and he might end himself behind bars.
Alternatively, it could simply be the most recent in a long string of ostensibly disruptive incidents that, in retrospect, have served as hiccups on Trump's rise to power.
American University professor Allan Lichtman has developed a political model that, since 1984, has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that Trump's criminal conviction may represent the type of “cataclysmic and unprecedented” turn that upends the model and alters the path of history.
"This will go down in history books as a truly remarkable, unprecedented event, but a lot will depend on what happens next," he predicts.
On the significance of Trump's conviction, voters in November will ultimately render a decision. His guilty decision is probably going to be seen as one of the reasons the former president lost.
Should he prevail, it could be but a minor incident in the turbulent yet significant political career of Trump.
"We all know that the winners write history," Mr. Engel asserts.
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