Donald Trump’s loyalists in Georgia have proven time and again their unshakable support for the former president, just as President Joe Biden’s allies have shown how fervently they’ll work to keep the Republican out of office.

But Trump’s felony conviction in New York this week triggered movement in the ongoing effort to win the small but influential faction of swing voters who proved decisive in Georgia’s last three elections and could again be a difference-maker in November.

While most analysts say the political impact of the guilty verdict is uncertain, interviews with more than a dozen Georgia voters across the political spectrum show how the divide over Trump’s rule-breaking tendencies could influence the state’s tight presidential race.

Some say the conviction on 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election reinforced their decision to back Biden’s reelection bid. Others say it confirmed their concerns about a politicized judicial system. A few say they’re tuning it out entirely.

The interviews reflect the unpredictable nature of the fallout of the verdict, which marks the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted in a criminal case.

Trump’s most loyal allies and his biggest detractors are already rallying their respective political camps, leaving swing voters to weigh the felony convictions along with other factors, such as the economy and international conflicts, that could sway their decisions.

Scott Davidson of Bartow County said he leans Republican but has a soft spot for some old-guard Democrats like former Gov. Zell Miller and former President Jimmy Carter.

Still, he said, he likes Trump’s business-minded vows to restore a country that’s “in bad shape” — and the trial hasn’t changed his mind.

“I thought he was guilty of some stuff,” Davidson said. “But I think they’re just railroading him.”

Similarly, Mike Kovack of Winder said the appeal of Trump’s “raw and real” persona outweighs the New York verdict and the criminal charges pending in Fulton County and two other jurisdictions.

“I’m still voting for him,” Kovack said. “It seems like a political attack, for the most part.”

Still, others say the legal problems add to a heap of reasons they are withholding their support from Trump.

“This is the leader of the free world. The president needs to have some type of wisdom, morality, ethics, integrity,” said David Earle of Midtown.

“It’s the first time in his adult life he’s been held accountable for his actions.”

The ‘ick’ factor

The intense focus on swing voters is particularly resonant in Georgia, where Trump’s post-election campaign to reverse his defeat is at the center of a wide-ranging election-interference trial in Fulton County.

The former president’s campaign has put Georgia at the top of his November priority list, with state and national Republicans saying Trump’s comeback bid is doomed unless he can flip the state back to the GOP column.

A range of recent polls have shown Trump with a slim but steady lead in the state, but also suggest that the criminal cases might have an undetermined effect on voters.

While polls indicate that most Republicans, and some independent voters, view the indictments as politicized, many also say they won’t vote for a presidential candidate with a felony conviction on his record.

That once was theoretical. Now it’s not. Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie said most voters’ opinions were “already baked in long before the verdict” but she said she’ll be paying close attention to survey data to see if there’s a shift in the electorate.

“I’m personally prepared not to see it move much,” she said. “This isn’t going to negate the need for both parties to run the drill and mobilize voters.”

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Still, others say even the slightest movement at the margins could be pivotal. Biden captured the state by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, and split-ticket voters two years later helped elect both Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock to new terms in office.

State Rep. Stacey Evans, a Democrat who ran for governor in 2018, noted that it is hard to get 12 people to agree on where to eat dinner, let alone render a guilty verdict against a former president in the middle of a comeback bid.

“I think this will have a bigger impact on independent voters who don’t want a president convicted of a felony,” said Evans. “You can’t underestimate the ick factor of that.”

Of ‘superfans’ and shams

That might best describe the mood of Gregory Marshall, a middle-of-the-road voter from Peachtree Corners who is disgusted by the vitriol he hears from both ends of the political spectrum. He’s no “Biden superfan,” he said, but he backed him in 2020 and plans to do so again.

“Is he probably too old for the job? Yeah. But if I knew he had a pulse, I would vote for him” over Trump, he said. The guilty verdict only strengthened his conviction.

“I could never vote for him, ever, based on his own attitudes toward women, toward people who were not in line with everything he believes in,” Marshall said.

What’s also unclear is the long-term effect of sustained GOP attacks on the criminal justice system, including Trump’s claims of a “rigged” trial that have filtered down to many of his supporters.

“I think the whole episode was a sham,” said Cherokee County resident J.D. Waldrep. “If anything, it’s going to make a lot more people vote for him.”

Republicans also hope that narrative sinks in with unaligned voters over the next five months.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon, one of Trump’s key supporters in the state, has until recently argued the criminal charges will factor far behind the economy and immigration at the ballot box. But he told the Politically Georgia podcast Friday that he’s updating his theory after the conviction.

“Now people might add one more thing to that: Do we want what’s happened over the last year or so to be normal in American politics?” McKoon asked. “I don’t think we want to live in a country where if people want to enter politics they need to be prepared to set aside money to defend themselves from politically motivated criminal charges.”

Democrats similarly say the conviction probably won’t upend the dynamics of an already close race. But U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams said it should provide a crystallizing moment for Democrats ahead of the first presidential debate in Atlanta this month.

“Donald Trump could jump off the bridge at the Chattahoochee River, and if he jumped off that bridge, Republicans would follow him,” said Williams, who is also the Chair of the state Democratic Party.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop the people who agree with Donald Trump from supporting him,” she added. “We need to tell the story of how the Democrats, with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, continue every day to deliver for the American people.”