Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday set a date of May 20, 2024 for the start of former President Donald Trump's trial on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents, meaning that the GOP presidential primary will be all but finished when his fate is decided.

The Associated Press said the date was a compromise between the December 11, 2023 date the prosecution wanted and the defense's contention that the trial should not take place until after the general election in November 2024.

While the GOP nominee will likely be known when the trial wraps up, it will likely be before the Republican convention when the nominee is officially chosen.

Currently, Trump is far ahead of all other candidates despite two indictments and the likely prospect of a third one over Trump's part in the January 6 Capitol breach.

Disenfranchises voters

Should Trump be convicted and face a prison sentence, it's unclear what would happen with his nomination and the election. No presidential candidate has been able to face an indictment (or even its threat) without losing public support, but in this case, most Republicans see both indictments of Trump as politically motivated and an attempt by President Joe Biden to get rid of his primary political rival.

Breitbart News pointed out that the trial date "effectively disenfranchises Republican voters because they can’t choose a different candidate in the event Trump is convicted."

If the trial were held after the election, and if Trump won, it would run up against a statute that presidents cannot be criminally charged and prosecuted while in office.

They can, however, be impeached and removed from office if Congress has the will (and the votes) to do so.

Trump is a survivor

Trump has already survived two impeachments that were also viewed by Republican voters as politically motivated.

Neither one was able to get enough votes in the Senate to convict Trump and remove him, and further impeachments are likely to go the same way in the current political climate.

In fact, unless Republicans fail to keep a majority in the House, Trump will be relatively safe from any legal consequences if he is elected president for a second, if divided, term.

At 77 years old, he is just a few years younger than Biden, but seems to have all of his mental faculties in place.

Is Trump the one?

Voters don't love his obsession with mean tweeting and complaining about election fraud in the 2020 election, but they seem to like Biden's open borders and economic failures even less.

He thinks he can make America great again--again, and enough Americans may just believe that he can do it, if recent polls are any indication.