We are less than 24 hours removed from the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump. Already politicians and party strategists are talking behind closed doors about what the shooting means for the 2024 race.
Which might sound callous. A man is dead. (His name is Corey Comperatore.) Two others are critically injured. Trump was grazed with a bullet in his right ear.
But, the reality of politics is that when something this massive happens in the middle of a presidential campaign OF COURSE it impacts the candidates and the public. It is a worldwide news story — the first attempted assassination of a president or candidate for president since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
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And it will continue to dominate the news for weeks to come — the shooter’s motive and politics (if any), the Secret Service’s actions (and inaction), the effect of inflammatory rhetoric on actions and on and on and on.
All of which means that this is a pivot point in the race for president, a moment where things change.
So, what’s changed?
1. Trump is now equal parts hero and victim to lots and lots of people — especially in the Republican base.
This line — from his standard stump speech — now takes on much greater meaning: “In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way.”
That Trump was shot would be enough to drive that narrative. That he got back on his feet, with blood running down his face, and threw a raised fist skyward while yelling “fight, fight, fight” will turn him into an icon for many Republicans.
And the picture at the top of this piece — taken by the Associated Press’ Evan Vucci — instantly becomes the defining image of the 2024 campaign. It is already the cover of Time magazine.
That photo — and the defiance in the face of an attempt on his life it shows — will be, for many Trump voters, the proof that he must be the next president of the United States.
There was already a major enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democratic voters as the new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows:
Republican base voters will now, literally, crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump. Even in the first 24 hours after the shooting, a messianic narrative was emerging around the former president among base voters.
How does the assassination attempt impact voters outside of the Republican base? Good question — and harder to know.
I struggle to see how any partisan Democrat will change his or her mind about Trump in the wake of the shooting. But, independents and low information voters? They will absolutely hear about this attack. Could it make them more sympathetic to Trump? Make them more likely to see him as a truth-to-power figure (if they are trying this hard to keep him from being president, they must really think he is a threat to the status quo)?
Again, I think it’s too early to know. People are still processing this.
But I will say that, 24 hours ago, it was virtually impossible for me to imagine Trump as a sympathetic figure in the eyes of persuadable voters. And now….well I can see it.
2. The “replace Biden” movement is (probably) over
As I wrote in this space yesterday — before the assassination attempt — the efforts by Democrats to get Joe Biden off the fall ballot looked like it was going to come up short.
Now? It’s almost impossible for me to imagine that Biden won’t be the nominee.
The reality is that ALL of the attention will now be on Trump — how and when he reappears at the Republican National Convention this week. Massive storylines — including who Trump picks as his vice presidential nominee — are molehills compared to that mountain.
The air has simply gone out of the balloon of those Democrats who were trying to orchestrate Biden’s removal from the ticket. Calls for Biden to get out will seem less relevant when talking about the life and death matter that we saw play out on a Pennsylvania rally stage on Saturday.
And Biden is doing everything he can to look presidential in the wake of the assassination attempt — addressing the nation twice in the last 24 hours not to mention sharing a photo of him in the Situation Room. Sunday morning. (Biden also said Sunday afternoon that he will address the nation again tonight.)
To be clear: I still not do think Biden is the strongest — or even close to the strongest — Democratic candidate to beat Trump. But, it’s extremely hard for me to imagine him not being the nominee now.
3. Biden’s “attack Trump” strategy won’t work
Go back and read the stories and social media coverage of Biden’s speech in Michigan on Friday night.
Democrats loved it because Biden went after Trump — hard. Here’s the lede of the Detroit Free Press story on Biden’s speech at that rally:
An impassioned, invigorated President Joe Biden on Friday tried to flip the script on his reelection campaign as he faces pressure from some critical Democrats to abandon his nomination, telling a rollicking crowd of supporters at a Detroit rally that the focus should be on the threat former President Donald Trump poses to the country.
And Biden kicked his speech off with this line: “I know him. Donald Trump is a loser.”
This is not a one-off. Since Biden’s debate debacle, the strategy his campaign has adopted as he tries to dig out is to go after Trump in increasingly-personal terms. Check out this tweet from Biden on June 28:
It will be very hard for Biden to go that, um, hard against Trump any time soon. Not only because Trump has become — amazingly — a sympathetic figure but also because there will be an intense focus on the dangers of violent rhetoric in the coming days and weeks.
Biden, sensing that change, sounded a note of unity in his brief speech to the country on Sunday.
“Unity is the most elusive goal,” he said. “But nothing is more important than that right now.”
Given that, it will be a major challenge for Biden to resume his negative TV advertising against Trump or re-ramp up his rhetoric on the campaign trail.
And the truth is that Biden likely needs to do just that. He’s behind right now and the traditional way of catching up is to go after your opponent — as aggressively as possible. Doing that just got a lot harder for Biden.
4. Speaking of unity…can Trump give voice to it?
In the wake of the assassination attempt, Donald Trump put out a remarkably, well, presidential statement on Sunday morning. Here it is:
On Sunday afternoon, he posted another message urging the country to come together:
And, after some ridiculous statements from the likes of Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and others (I will not link to them here) the two top aides for the Trump campaign — Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles — put out a memo with a zero tolerance policy for trying to politicize the assassination attempt.
“Please do not comment publicly on the occurrence of today,” read the memo. “We condemn all forms of violence, and will not tolerate dangerous rhetoric on social media.”
Let me be clear: I DO NOT believe Trump can keep this up. He is not now — nor has he ever been — a voice of unity. It’s not in his nature.
But, per my point above, it will be extremely difficult for Biden to be the first one to break the “unity” talk. The longer Trump can keep it up — and I will be shocked if he can do it for more than a few weeks — the harder it becomes for Biden to begin the hard work of peeling votes away from the former president.
President Biden and the Democrats MUST tell the truth about Trump being an existential threat to this country and democracy and say it over and over and over and over again.
Some lunatic taking shots at him does not change the fact that Trump is STILL a repugnant con-man, criminal, sociopathic megalomaniac, pathological liar, serial sexual predator and abuser, amoral psychopath who should be kept away from the WH and such immense power....but by VOTES, not bullets.
Turn the focus to Project 2025. Several people on podcasts or Substack essays are doing deep dives into it, chapter by chapter. Pay attention to what they are finding (there is a lot more in it than what has been publicized so far) and share it. It was so nice of Republicans to publish their detailed plans to demolish our society beforehand.
Focusing on Project 2025 right now will take the focus off trump and put it on Republicans up and down the ballot, where it truly belongs anyway.
Once trump stops being the hero and goes back to his usual whiny victim, that’s when to put the focus back on his lack of character.