As the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump got underway Tuesday, many Cullman residents said they would not be watching the historic proceedings. It is the third time in the history of the United States that a president has been impeached.

In a poll done by The Cullman Times, votes were running two-to-one against watching the impeachment trial. 

Cullman County GOP Chairman Steve Cummings, however, will be paying attention to the drama unfolding in Washington, D.C.

He said he doesn’t expect the impeachment trial is going to sway voters one way or another, but could be otherwise revealing. “I don’t see it changing people’s point of view,” he said. “It’s going to set a precedent though. If you’re not in control of the House and someone doesn’t like what you did [they will be more likely to impeach you].”

Chief Justice John Roberts opened the session on Tuesday, after administering the oath to senators last week to do “impartial justice.” Going into the impeachment, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell was aiming for a two-day trial, with 12 hours each day. After pushback from Democrats and some Republicans, however, McConnell backed off some of his proposed rules.

The changes would add an extra day to each side’s opening arguments and allow for some House evidence to be included.

No president has ever been removed from office by impeachment, and experts and local observers don’t expect Trump to be removed either. 

“They’re not gonna vote him out,” said Cummings. “It’ll give him time to put the focus on his own campaign message. It’ll probably be over in February, and he’ll have time to build up steam. I think it’s gonna expose [the extent to which] it’s political. It’ll cycle out, like so many other things have that have been aimed at Trump. I guess if I were on their side, it would make sense to try to put that blemish on him though.”

The rare impeachment trial, unfolding in an election year, is testing whether Trump’s actions toward Ukraine warrant removal at the same time that voters are forming their own verdict on his White House.

Democrats say the prospect of middle-of-the-night proceedings, without allowing new witnesses or even the voluminous House records into the trial, would leave the public without crucial information about Trump’s political pressure campaign on Ukraine and the White House’s obstruction of the House impeachment probe.

Trump’s legal team doesn’t dispute Trump’s actions — that he called the Ukraine president and asked for a “favor” during a July 25 phone call. In fact, the lawyers included the rough transcript of Trump’s conversation as part of its 110-page trial brief submitted ahead of the proceedings.

Instead the lawyers for the president, led by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and a TV-famous legal team including Alan Dershowitz, say the two charges against the president don’t amount to impeachable offenses and Trump committed no crime.

Legal scholars have long insisted the framers of the Constitution provided impeachment as a remedy for “other high crimes and misdemeanors,” a particularly broad definition that doesn’t mean simply specific criminal acts.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.