The Death of The Teflon Candidate? Trump's Trials and the Electoral Equation

There's nothing more politically American than surviving an assassination attempt whilst holding a rally in the run-up to an election: precedented by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 where he was saved from a gunshot by his speech notes and a metal case, and proceeded to finish his original speech. As such, the now infamous ordeal in Pennsylvania at Trump's rally may well end up propping up both his potential as a candidate to claw in more supporters, and building fervour amongst his existing (already radical) campaign. After all, it also goes without saying that any presidential election, whether in 1912 or 2025, is inherently centred around character, rhetoric and personal patriotism above many other seemingly important technical facets: the American people for the most part are extraordinarily nationalistic, and so when voting for a future leader in the national election- a rather intimate event for the average citizen- one likely ends up having a conversation with themselves about with whom they align more or find more interesting, rather than whose manifesto or policy they prefer in a pragmatic, forward-thinking, politico-economic sense.

This nationwide passion, indeed, is exactly what separates American electoral procedures from equivalents across the globe, and is a large factor behind why specific events such as assassination attempts can have such a profound, catalytic impact on a campaign. However, whilst Roosevelt's near-death experience was undoubtedly an emotive event for all Americans, the fact that he ended up losing to the infamous Woodrow Wilson may indicate that the way in which members of the public arbitrate their voting decision goes far beyond flashy proposals and tokenistic speeches (or at least it did 112 years ago).

This, in the current context of Trump's electoral prospects and legal stature, begs the grand question of which side of the scale carries more weight: his grandiose visage as a Messiah to the American people, or the civil and criminal cases piled highly that paint Trump as a fraudster (quite literally), an adulterer, alongside many other labels, but above all, someone who should never be endorsed to lead the United States.

That question is precisely what this article, through contextual speculation and impartiality, aims to evaluate.

At first glance, based on the intensity and scale of legal harm Trump may potentially sustain, it would seem as though his electoral campaign shall suffer from immense danger and vulnerability, almost behaving at the mercy of these juridicial verdicts. So far, Trump has been found guilty in his civil fraud case, not only resulting in a fine of several hundreds of millions of dollars, but serving the truly harmful dish of now being the first felon president in the history of the USA- not a great look for a man seeking authority over the entire nation's assets, both political and monetary (especially considering the financial nature of this case).

On the other hand, the former president's case for mishandling classified documents was recently dismissed by the Florida Court, signifying a sizeable portion of legal ground that Trump has managed to regain. Indeed, perhaps the most crucial case of all- the case concerning Trump's alleged attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election via inciting the infamous January Capitol riot- has recently been put off for the foreseeable future with Trump having been granted partial immunity from the criminal charges against him. These two developments in tandem certainly remove some of the sting from the legal storm that faces, and will continue to face Donald J. Trump in the coming years.

Nevertheless, perhaps what's more important than the magnitude and layers of his defamation, rather the fact that Trump is now, under the eyes of the law, a convicted criminal in some capacity. This label, acting as an eternal symbol for the former president's crooked past, shall remain pertinent regardless of the other trial rulings, and will certainly play an important role in the coming election: to what extent this principled symbol could have a tangible effect on voter bases is perhaps the more relevant question to the American political theatre.

At first glance, it may seem as though Donald Trump's (relatively) newfound status as a felon would not only deter currently ambivalent or swing state voters from the Republican Party, but also give current Republicans the political 'ick' (i.e. lose previously sustained faith in their leading candidate), and therefore begin to drive an internal wedge between Trump and his supporters. After all, it wouldn't sound appealing to anyone for a crook to have authority of the world's largest superpower, wouldn't it, right? Surprisingly, that intuitive assumption is pretty far from the reality of Trump's campaign as it stands, which, in turn, shall leave us observers with a variety of conclusions to draw.

Indeed, following the former president's guilty verdict, what has surprised many so far is the fact that his presidential run remains pretty much unscathed, with his provisional Republican voter base remaining loyal despite his financial adultery. The expected negative reaction to his verdict was in fact so minimal from Republicans that it could, in fact, be labelled as positive if anything. According to the BBC, 'the conviction injected new life into his electoral bid - with his campaign announcing that it raised nearly $53m (£41.6m) in just 24 hours after the verdict'. This tangible surge in support following his conviction was by no means a natural event, however: soon after his conviction, the candidate ruled on various public platforms that the verdict had made a mockery of the American judicial system, implicitly calling for reform (through a new Republican governance, of course). Perhaps what this miraculous turn of events does speak to is the quasi-Napoleonic ability of Donald Trump to morph events, no matter how bad they seem, into positive political matter, day by day adding more weight to his right-wing fraternity. In that respect, regardless of any developments of his pending cases, Trump will most likely maintain his Teflon suit of armour and continue to pose a serious bid for the presidential throne.

The strange way events have panned out across the past few months in relation to Trump also have some powerful judicial implications, as after all, this is a law publication. The broader idea of the court being deeply intertwined with Congress and the realm of politics is almost idiomatic in the modern day, yet considering how quickly and relatively easily the official verdict of the New York judiciary was brushed off and forgotten about (to an extent) by politicians and citizens alike, the former seems to have much less of an influence on the latter than one may think.

To put it briefly, perhaps what the eyes of the law perceive to be the case in political matters manifests in society merely de jure, whereas what really goes on behind the shady curtains of the political theatre de facto is a completely different story. This unilateral detachment opens a whole new Pandora's box as to how politicians, those entitled with the power to govern and regulate, can be governed and regulated themselves to prevent abuse, and maintain integrity, candour and liberty in all layers of civilisation- especially in a country like the United States that supposedly lives and breathes such virtues.