by Evan Oscherwitz

The last few weeks have seen a number of interesting developments in the American political landscape, as the race for the presidency is now at its apex. Both parties held their conventions, which sparked a minor change in the polls that eventually subsided, and a third party candidate began to garner major support in the polls for the first time since Ross Perot.

However, the most controversial and potentially significant event of these few weeks has to be the DNC Wikileaks scandal, a massive leak of Democratic Party insiders’ emails, some of which indicated bias towards nominee Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and even supposed plots to extinguish the rising star of Clinton’s opponent, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

The massive implications that a scandal such as this one carries with it have the potential to really shake up the polls; but due to the very unique circumstances of this presidential race, it is unlikely that the scandal will have a profound impact.

In quite literally any other race, a scandal of this variety would be costly to the candidate involved, as being associated with potential election fraud would lead voters to question that candidate’s credibility.

However, since Clinton’s opponent is the highly controversial and widely despised Donald Trump, whose actions in the recent weeks have resulted in a noticeable drop in the polls, the scandal will likely not hurt her any more than it already has.

Furthermore, since there exists no indication that Clinton or her associates were aware of the party’s intentions to rig the primaries in her favor, no rational voters would waive their neutrality or support for her due to the scandal.

Additionally, the fact that Clinton has faced many scandals in the past, none of which appeared to significantly reduce her following, should actually benefit her here.

If her supporters, and voters who remain undecided were not compelled to place their support elsewhere by the controversial decisions she made while serving as secretary of state, they will not be deterred by this scandal, which is minor in comparison.

Clinton’s credibility has taken so many shots in the past that it virtually cannot be questioned any further, and because she was not directly involved in this controversy, the only people who are likely to chastise her for it are those who have already established themselves as fervent adversaries.

Receiving the endorsement of the man whom the DNC was allegedly planning to rig the primaries against should cool the tongues of outraged Sanders supporters.

Finally, the most significant reason for which Clinton will likely not receive any sort of backlash for the DNC’s alleged treachery is the complete lack of evidence that most of their plans came into fruition.

No significant evidence exists that Clinton’s campaign received funds via improper means or that the DNC ever attacked the credibility of journalists who called for the resignation of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

As far as anyone knows, the plans discussed in the emails were mostly just plans, and it is unjust to hold this against Clinton, who was seemingly uninvolved and most likely oblivious to what was going on.