South-Carolina
Why the Trump indictments have not moved the needle with Republicans
With each passing indictment of former President Donald Trump — up to four now in less than five months — its seems he’s only solidified his grip on the Republican Party.
Trump is the far-and-away front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination again and has raised gobs of money off of the legal developments. About half of Republican voters seem nearly locked in for Trump and believe his baseless narrative of deep-state conspiracies against him.
At this point, with a fourth indictment that came out of Georgia on Monday night, stemming from his and allies’ attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state, plus ones in New York and two at the federal level, the GOP base appears to believe the conspiracy is pretty far and wide.
Few of Trump’s Republican primary opponents are criticizing him on the charges, and the GOP officials who do are turned into political pariahs.
But what explains this? And is this “nothing matters” narrative actually something of a mirage — at least with the broader electorate?
Let’s dig in.
A repelling effect with independents
First, let’s start out with the fact that the indictments have mattered politically.
With most Americans, Trump remains highly unpopular.
His favorability rating, on average, is only about 40%. With independents, he’s in the 30s in the latest polling.
And Trump has had a repelling effect with independent voters, who lean toward one party or the other and often decide the outcome of elections.
More than half of independents — 52% — said they think Trump has done something illegal, the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found. That’s up 11 points since March, just before the first indictment in New York was released related to Trump’s hush-money payments to women he was alleged to have had affairs with.
Remember, that change comes after Trump’s brand hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats won independents in the midterm elections by 2 points, according to exit polls, which led to Republicans winning a smaller-than-expected majority in the House, and Democrats picking up a seat in the Senate.
That result defied the history of how the party out of power usually performs in midterm elections. For example, when Trump was president, Democrats won independents by 12 points in 2018. Republicans, on the other hand, won them by double digits in the midterms during Obama’s presidency.
In both 2016 and 2020, Trump got less than 47% of the vote — 45.9% in 2016 and 46.8% in 2020. That was before Jan. 6 and these multiple indictments.
Trump has done very little to expand beyond his base in the years since, and his toxicity with independents makes it hard to see his path to winning back the White House in 2024 — without a little help from a potential third-party bid. (More on that below.)
Now, where it hasn’t moved the needle is with Republicans
Republicans are living in a different universe than Democrats or independents when it comes to Trump.
Trump has insulated himself with many Republicans with his cries of witch hunts, political targeting and a healthy dose of whataboutism complaints of double standards.
After the 2020 election results were in, and his campaign manager and other high-ranking officials in his administration were telling him he lost, Trump routinely took to Twitter (now X) and conservative media to lie about the election.
He would talk about conspiracies with no founding, some of which are cited in the Georgia indictment, as if they were proof of things that either had already been disproven or would go on to be.
Trump is set to use that playbook again in a news conference he’s set for Monday from his golf course in New Jersey. He’s promising an “irrefutable” and “conclusive” report that will show he was right about a “rigged election.”
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump has targeted because he wouldn’t validate his attempts to overthrow the election and lies about widespread fraud, swatted Trump’s claims aside.
“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Kemp wrote on X. He noted correctly that no one with actual evidence of fraud has proven anything, under oath, in court. “Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor.”
The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.
For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I… pic.twitter.com/jaru2iBDo7
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) August 15, 2023
But Kemp — and Republicans like him — have been in the minority in their Trump-dominated party. Because of the warm feelings base voters have for Trump, few in the GOP have been willing to stick their necks out for fear that, politically, they’ll be chopped off.
The ones who do have suffered politically. Only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment, for example, still have those jobs.
And the primary opponents who’ve spoken out most forcefully don’t have much support, like former Vice President Mike Pence, former Govs. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Chris Christie of New Jersey, or former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others have emphasized a “double standard” with relation to the Justice Department, which has only served to further erode trust and confidence in the key law enforcement institution.
The GOP contenders are likely going to have to address the indictments at their first debate in a week — whether Trump is there or not. Trump says he won’t sign a pledge to support whomever the Republican nominee is, as is required by the party’s rules to participate.
That shows that for Trump, this really is a party of one.
Republicans, particularly in the House, and conservative media are helping him with that image, creating a false equivalence between the charges against Trump, a former president who is accused of undermining democracy, and Biden’s son Hunter, who faces misdemeanor charges related to his taxes (a special counsel investigation is underway).
Republicans’ attention to the Hunter Biden case seems to be an attempt to muddy the waters and carry a bucket of it to help shield Trump from his own legal and ethical woes.
Willing to believe anything?
The lengths to which many Republican voters are willing to go to believe Trump seems limitless.
Take what’s at the core of Trump’s argument — whether President Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, which he did. Recounts, audits and more than 60 court cases have proven that to be the case.
And yet, look at the most recent polling on this. In July, a CNN poll found that by a 61%-38% margin, people overall believed Biden legitimately won, but only 29% of Republicans thought so. Almost 7 in 10 (69%) Republicans said he did not.
Of Republicans who said they believed Biden lost, 56% said they base that on “solid evidence,” of which there is none, versus 44% who said it was their “suspicion” only.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll has asked some similar questions after the 2020 election. For example, in December 2020, 61% said they trusted the results of the election. Big numbers of Democrats and independents said they trusted the results, but 72% of Republicans did not.
In October 2021, 62% overall said Trump continues to make these claims that the 2020 election was rigged mostly because he didn’t like the outcome.
But, again, when it came to Republicans, quite a different story – 75% said it was mostly because he is right that there were real cases of fraud that changed the results.
The latest NPR poll found that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had declined by 9 points in saying that Trump had done nothing wrong, from 50% to 41% from June to July.
Trump also dropped 6 points with the same group when asked if they were likely to support Trump or another candidate in the 2024 primary.
But a majority continued to say they preferred Trump to be the GOP standard-bearer in 2024.
That depth of (false) belief is going to be nearly impossible to overcome with … facts, given how much Trump and his GOP have undercut expertise and the media.
Trump would likely need a little help from third-party candidates
Trump’s lack of support with the middle makes it hard to see a path for winning another term.
But it’s possible.
How?
Realize this: Trump got roughly a percentage point more of the share of the electorate in 2020 than 2016, but he lost.
Why? Look squarely at the third-party vote.
In 2016, 6% of voters cast their ballots for someone other than Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 2020, the third-party vote dropped to less than 2%.
That’s a 4 percentage point difference. Biden’s winning percentage? Just over 4 points.
And that’s in the popular vote, which Biden won by 7 million votes and Clinton won by 3 million. The Electoral College was much closer. Only 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Trump and Biden from an Electoral College tie.
That would have likely meant Trump’s reelection, given the House, which was controlled by Republicans, would have decided the presidential election, per the 12th Amendment. (It’s happened before, but not since 1825.)
That’s how close U.S. presidential elections are in this hyperpartisan era. So giving voters third-party options could tip the balance in the closest states, especially since both Trump and Biden are unpopular right now.
That’s why Democrats are so worried about efforts like that of the group No Labels, which, this week, won ballot access in 10 states, including the swing states of Arizona, Florida, Nevada and North Carolina. That quartet of states was decided by a combined 7 points — less than a point in Arizona, 1.3 in North Carolina, just over 2 in Nevada and 3 in Florida.
Most polling has shown that a serious third-party candidate would pull mostly from Biden. One recent survey showed that might not necessarily be the case, but Democratic strategists are sounding the alarm nonetheless.
No Labels argues its goal is not to hurt Biden, but to give people “more choices at the ballot box.”
But with the margins in the presidential election decided on a razor’s edge and the country this divided, anything is possible.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.
Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.
Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.
STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD
CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES
CLASS 3A SCORES | CLASS 2A SCORES
CLASS 1A SCORES
SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA
SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A
2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM
Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:
WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK
We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.
Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!
Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.
To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App
— Mitch Stephens | mitch@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi
South-Carolina
ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands
ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.
Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.
[More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]
While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.
With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.
The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.
Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.
While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.
South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.
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As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.
The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.
The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.
The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.
ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.
South Carolina football superfan Chris Paschal writes a weekly column during the season for GamecockCentral called “The Verdict.” Chris is a lawyer at Goings Law Firm in Columbia.
It will have been 44,592 days since Clemson students marched onto our campus with guns drawn when the Gamecocks take the field this Saturday in Death Valley. Back in 1902, Clemson students were mad because of a cartoon that depicted a Gamecock whipping a Tiger.
They marched on our campus, ready to cause bodily harm, over a cartoon. For 44,592 days, Clemson students, fans, coaches, players, and administrators have done everything but declare war on South Carolina to ensure they remain the superior football program in the state.
In 1902 there was more than just the cartoon. In 1902, Carolina beat Clemson.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it best following the game: the Clemson Tiger “was so successfully tamed this morning by Carolina. Its tail was twisted and twisted by the sturdy ‘pig skin pushers’ of Carolina, and after two hours and more of hard battle it gave up further fight, for time was called and it became as tame as the proverbial lamb.”
Carolina upset Clemson who at the time was led by John Heisman and was considered one of the great southern football powers. I think that too probably had a little something to do with the hostilities and hurt feelings coming from the Clemson students.
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For the 121st time this Saturday, it will be Carolina and Clemson playing a football game against each other. And while we are past the days of armed invasions, you can’t help but think this Saturday’s showdown may be the most consequential in the series’ history.
There have certainly been big matchups in years past. I am not discounting 1987. I am not overlooking 1979. I understand 2011-2013 featured some great teams. But this coming Saturday, both Clemson and Carolina will still be alive and in contention to bring home a national title.
The chances for both are not significant, but they are legitimate. For the first time in the entirety of the rivalry’s history, both Carolina and Clemson fans can hope that with a win over their hated rival they are one step closer to a playoff berth, which means one more step closer in the quest for a national championship.
Hopefully, the players donning the garnet and black won’t think similar thoughts as they run out onto the field for what should be a cold but sunny day. This game to the players needs to be about one thing: beating a team they are better than.
In continuing the list of firsts, for the first time in roughly a decade, South Carolina will have what I consider to be the better football team when they kick the ball off against Clemson. I think we have a better defense, I think we have a better offensive line, I think we have skill position players that are just as good as Clemson’s (if not better), and I think we have the better quarterback.
But that is what I think. I am an attorney. I am a fan. Clemson players won’t just roll over because I declared we have the better team. In fact, I expect this Dabo Swinney-led Clemson football team to fight like hell in an effort to keep their thumb still firmly on top of us.
Like Clemson fans, I think Clemson football players and coaches also think it is their birthright to beat the Gamecocks. And why shouldn’t they?
Clemson has won eight out of the last nine against Carolina. They have danced on our sidelines in the fourth quarter to Sandstorm, they have talked about how they think they will dominate us; they have talked about how we aren’t the real USC nor are we the real Carolina.
Underneath this façade of respect and admiration for this year’s Carolina team, Clemson fans (and I assume players) quietly assume 2024 will be just like most other recent years. They assume the moment will be too big, they assume the ghosts of years past will be too much, and they assume that by about 3:30 in the afternoon, Carolina will have once again not been physically or mentally strong enough to defeat Clemson.
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But I also think these assumptions, which often manifest themself in a holier-than-thou arrogance, stem from a small shred of doubt and fear that has crept into their minds. Carolina fans had no idea Clemson was passing the Gamecocks as a football program until it was too late. From 2009-2013, Carolina won five straight over Clemson. They assumed Clemson and their bumpkin coach were finally second fiddle to the Gamecocks. They ignored Clemson’s recruiting successes, they explained away Clemson’s double-digit win seasons as illegitimate due to being in the ACC, and they watched Clemson build a juggernaut that had passed Carolina in a very real and lasting way by 2014.
All it took was one whipping in 2014 for Carolina fans to realize that Clemson was now on a path that would destroy Gamecock hopes and dreams for many years to come. That feeling of “oh, crap” that Carolina fans felt in the few weeks leading up to the 2014 Clemson games, I wonder if Clemson fans are feeling that very same thing leading up to this Saturday’s game.
Maybe the thought of Carolina passing Clemson as a program hasn’t even crossed their minds. Maybe it is absurd that I would mention that in this column. Maybe by the final snap on Saturday, Clemson will have soundly defeated Carolina and made me and so many hopeful Gamecock fans look foolish.
Or maybe Harbor, Kennard, Stewart, Hemingway, Sanders, Knight, Emmanwori, Sellers, and so many other Gamecock stalwarts are capable of handling business and showing we do have the better team.
A win this weekend could be program defining. It at the very least could be season defining.
Is Shane Beamer and this Gamecock program always a bridesmaid but never the bride? Or is this team going to let this state and this nation understand that this is a new type of Gamecock football program?
We won’t know until Saturday, but I will be in Clemson cheering Carolina on, with the hope – the belief – that we will see that latter. Let’s tame the tiger once again into the proverbial lamb.
Forever to thee.
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