SOUTH CAROLINA (WPDE) — Historically, South Carolina is a red state. Earlier this year, Donald Trump beat out Republican candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley with just less than 60% of the votes in the state's February presidential primary election.
Now, as he's being handed down the 34 guilty verdicts in the New York hush money trial, the standing question is: will this have an impact on how Palmetto State voters mark their ballot come November?
Drew Kurlowski, a political science professor at Coastal Carolina University said maybe.
SUGGESTED: Trump conviction puts the US in unchartered legal, electoral territory
For the majority of voters across the nation, and here in the Palmetto State, Kurlowski said Biden's supporters will likely continue supporting him as the Democratic nominee, and the same goes for Trump's Republican supporters.
When it comes to independent or swing voters, he said there's a chance the guilty on all charges outcome of the hush money trial may push around 17% of them away from Trump. While that number may seem small, he said that may be all it takes to change the outcome of a close election.
However, arguably his biggest insight into this unprecedented case is the impact of time.
Kurlowski said it's really too early to tell how this could move the presidential election dial for voters.
"I think people need to digest this a little bit, right? We're only one day out and I don't think that, that people have kind of come to terms with perhaps the gravity of the verdict, if they're going to change their minds, they need to process whether or not; and I think that's something that we see maybe in a week or two, okay?" Kurlowski predicted. "And if we see that in a week or two in the polls, the question we be - does that effect persist?"
RELATED: President Joe Biden comments on Trump verdict
You've gotta take all the polls with a grain of salt, here in May.In his opinion, Kurlowski believes the effect of the spotlight on the hush money ruling won't persist through November with so much time between now and election day.
He explained, "Political events that occur, and after they're sort of swept out of the news cycle, people forget, and they go back and rely on more of those internal calculations that they've made about the candidate. And the question will be for some people - is this something that fundamentally changes how they think about Trump?"
While this isn't the only ongoing legal battle the former president is facing, Kurlowski said the 34 guilty verdicts from the hush money trial likely aren't the ones to alter votes. Instead, he said charges in other cases like the January 6 insurrection and Georgia election fraud have the potential to carry more weight, due to the heightened severity of those crimes.
Kurlowski also questions whether or not this will demobilize voters on either side of the race. Regardless of the political party following, Kurlowski said a glaring fallout of this trial that could potentially contribute to the demobilization of voters is that the case marks, "A really disappointing moment."
"Whether or not you believe that the trial was handed in a fair and just way, it's a sad moment to see a political leader, a former president, convicted of felonies in furtherance of trying to cheat an election. That's a really low point for our politics."Trump's sentencing for the 34 guilty indictments in the New York hush money trial is scheduled for Thursday, July 11.
ncG1vNJzZmivmpawtcKNnKamZ56axLR7zZqroqeeYsSwvsudZp2nnpa5pXnTq6ymqF2bsq27zbJknKeeq7akwMiopWamlax6urvRpGShraOdeq67zZ6wZqyinq6tedKorK2gXZius7vLoqWaZaakwaa%2BjKysqaifp8Fuus6vnKaalad6c3yRbWSpqpWotqW6xK2gmqRdmrmmr9Oipqdll6q2rcDYZq2eqpSesLW%2FjKmmpaGknrCiuIysmqKdnpiybrHXqZyrrF2nsrHBwaWgnJmeYrGmuc6cqZqsXZ%2B8pnnBopuepl2eu6Wxz56lnZ2eqXq0w8innmabn5bAta3LZpqaqp%2Bhtq%2BtjK6loq6Vp8CqwNg%3D