For any other Presidential candidate, criminal charges might be "the kiss of death," but Donald Trump may be able to use them to his advantage, says Rice political science professor Bob Stein.

“His base may be getting a little smaller, but it’ll get stronger, because people who remain with him will get more incentivized,” said Stein.

Thursday's news that a Manhattan grand jury had decided to indict the former president for his role in an alleged hush money scheme was a historic moment — no other former president has faced criminal charges — that left politicians and pundits on the right and left scrambling to dissect the possible fallout.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg began investigating Trump for his involvement in the $130,000 in  payments made to former adult film star, Stormy Daniels, just days before the 2016 election — supposedly to conceal an earlier alleged affair between the two.

While hush money payments aren't illegal, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor criminal offense. They can be upgraded to a felony if they were done to cover up other criminal activity.  The payment to Daniels was allegedly made by Trump's then personal attorney Michael Cohen who was reimbursed under the guise of legal work done for Trump.

The former president, who just last week was in Waco to launch his re-election bid in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, has derided the grand jury action, claiming it is a political witch hunt on the part of his enemies. Many of Trump's fellow Republican constituents echoed the former president's complaints.

This GOP show of support for Trump wasn't seen after the former president failed in his bid for re-election against Joe Biden, said Alex Badas, assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston.

"When we look back to the last midterms, a lot of the Trump-endorsed candidates performed poorly and overall the Republicans did a little worse than anticipated and that created some cleavage and grip for DeSantis," Badas said. "But now this is seen as an attack on Trump and it's looking like the party is consolidating around him again and that may help him in the Republican primary."

Which at least for right now, isn't good news for DeSantis.

"Later down the road, when they get into primary season, DeSantis may want to try to capitalize on this a little bit more, because that's when they're actually going to be in a competition," Badas said. "But right now, none of these Republican candidates want to alienate themselves from voters by going against what is for some people the figurehead of the party."

According to Stein, "DeSantis needs to thread through this eye of a needle, he has to convince these people that he can give them what Trump does, without the negatives and show them that he has a better chance at getting elected than Trump does."

In addition to the more than 30 counts related to business fraud Trump reportedly faces in the Manhattan indictment,  Stein said there is a chance that there will be additional charges filed against Trump, as there are two ongoing investigations concerning classified documents held at Mar-a-Lago and the alleged election tampering in Fulton County, Georgia.

Accord to Stein, the key testimony in the Manhattan proceedings will be delivered by attorney Cohen.

“Mr. Cohen is a smoking gun,” Stein said. “The breadth and the depth of this investigation probably starts and ends with Mr. Cohen.”

Despite the raised tensions with Thursday's indictment, Stein does not think it will incite violence like what was seen during the January 6 insurrection.

“There’s a chance that there might be actions taken at the courthouse against individuals who are visible to the trial, like the district attorney; but, this indictment is not likely to lead to events like what happened in Washington, D.C.”

Trump is expected to be arraigned sometime early next week. As it turns out, there is no law that prevents him from being the President, while under indictment or even if he is convicted.