PLATTSBURGH — The guilty verdict in the case against former President Donald Trump will affect the 2024 election, says a local expert who has been watching and studying the case.

“The guilty verdict will affect the 2024 presidential election campaign, both in terms of initial public reaction and campaign strategies,” Dr. Harvey Schantz, a longtime political science professor at SUNY Plattsburgh, said.

“Six percent of Trump voters, according to the May 22, 2024, Quinnipiac Poll said that a conviction in the case would make them less likely to vote for Trump. Although six percent is not a very large number, in a close election, such a movement could be decisive. Moreover, the felony conviction of Trump gives the campaign of President Joe Biden a strong talking point and allows them to more easily frame Trump as a threat to democracy.”

Schantz said that in every election, there is a battle over defining the important issues in the unfolding campaign. Typically, the re-election of an incumbent is a referendum on the sitting president and Biden’s 39 percent job approval ordinarily predicts defeat at the polls for a presidential re-election.

But the conviction of Trump affords Biden the opportunity to make the campaign about Trump rather than a referendum on Biden’s own years in the White House, Schantz said.

“The coverage of the trial, especially the waning hope of the commentators on Fox News for an acquittal, suggested to me that a guilty verdict was in the offing, but I was nevertheless shocked when in the late afternoon the jury suddenly announced that a verdict was reached and a guilty verdict announced,” he said.

“The case of The People of the State of New York v. Donald Trump will be a major touchstone in presidential studies and history.”

Partisan Lenses

Schantz was not the only one tuned into the trial.

Voters also followed it closely, Schantz said, as 70 percent of registered voters reported to the Quinnipiac Poll that they were either very closely or somewhat closely following the news of the trial.

Partisan voters were particularly interested in the trial, with 82 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans closely following the trial, as compared to 59 percent of independent voters.

Most registered voters across the country viewed the trial through partisan lenses, Schantz said.

“The partisan groups were split on the seriousness of the charges, with only 9 percent of Republicans viewing them as ‘very serious,’ as contrasted to 68 percent of Democrats, and 34 percent of independents,” Schantz said.

“Likewise, only 9 percent of Republicans felt that former President Trump did ‘something illegal,’ as compared to 85 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of independents.”

Preliminary congressional reaction to the verdict has followed partisan lines, as well, with Republicans criticizing the guilty decision and Democrats applauding it.

North Country Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-Schuylerville) the House Republican Conference Chair and a staunch Trump supporter, heavily chastised the verdict, calling it ‘rigged, corrupt and un-American.’

The trial also highlighted a number of important features of American politics, including localism, Schantz said, with the jury drawn from the very Democratic leaning borough of Manhattan; increased partisanship, with a Democratic District Attorney prosecuting a former Republican president; the importance of federalism, with the trial taking place in a New York City Criminal Court; and the important role of courts in the political process.