What Donald Trump assassination bid means for US Presidential Elections 2024 - Explained in 5 points

The assassination bid at Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night is expected to impact the race for the White House. While the motive behind the attack is unknown, it will certainly affect the political discourse, campaigning and voter behavior in the run up to the November 8 polls, experts suggest.

All eyes on Republican Convention 

The first possible consequence would be on display in the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Republicans are gathering from July 15 at the four-day event to begin the official process of nominating Trump as their Presidential candidate.

Trump’s campaign has said that he still plans to attend the Republican Convention. “Republicans will leverage the shooting over the four-day event, and try to capitalize on Trump’s lead and cast him as a sympathetic figure and fighter of oppressive forces,” Nick Beauchamp, associate professor of political science at Northeastern University, was quoted as saying by Northeastern Global News.

Following the attack, Trump released a statement thanking the Secret Service and law enforcement. He also expressed his condolences to the other victims.

“The images of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the shooting are likely to become iconic,” Douglas Brinkley, a Historian at Rice University told the Washington Post.

Sympathy for Trump?

Brinkley said there is something in the US spirit that likes seeing fortitude and courage under pressure and the fact that Trump held his fist up high will become a new symbol.

“By surviving an attempted assassination, you become a martyr, because you get a groundswell of public sympathy,” he said.

Long Road for Joe Biden?

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the shooting guarantees every Trump voter will actually vote, while Biden won't be able to count on that certainty.

"The long and winding road for Joe Biden just became even longer and windier. The shooting of Donald Trump will be significantly consequential in a way the shooter never intended," Luntz posted on X.

Trump's shooting is said to overtake the campaign's hitherto dominant narrative, which talked about the disarray within the Democrats following President Joe Biden’s debate performance and the growing clamour asking him to step aside and allow a younger candidate to take over.

Soon after the attack, Biden decried the violence as ‘sick’ before a phone call with his rival Democrat. In a televised address later, Biden again condemned the attack on Trump, reiterating that there is ‘no place in America’ for this kind of violence.

“Tonight, I want to speak to what we do know. A former president was shot, and an American citizen was killed, while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not go down this road in America we've travelled before throughout our history; violence has never been the answer,” Biden said.

Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and a Trump critic, said that the political consequences of the Trump shooting would be immense, and will potentially benefit the former President in the race.

“Historically, the assassination target most like Trump is George Wallace, but when it comes to the response to being shot the only presidential equivalent to Trump’s response was that of Teddy Roosevelt,” Schmidt said in a post on X.

On October 14, 1912, there was an assassination attempt at former US President Theodore Roosevelt while he was campaigning for the presidency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Roosevelt, eventually, lost the 1912 election, finishing second to Woodrow Wilson.

Not the first attack

With the attack on Saturday night, Trump became the 13th US president or presidential candidate to face an assassination bid, and the eighth to survive.

"The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination," Ohio Senator JD Vance, a possible Trump running mate, posted on X.

Biden’s campaign is now limited in how it can push forward, according to reports. The outburst of political violence stymies his efforts to argue his case. It also undercuts a core premise of his presidency — that he would restore decency and normalcy to national politics, according to a report in Bloomberg.

The swing voters?

The shooting confirmed the fears of half of swing-state voters, who said in a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll in May that they were worried about violence surrounding the election, the Bloomberg report said.

“In a sense, this is already playing up to Trump’s pre-existing image as a fighter against oppressive forces. It seems unlikely that is going to win them over, particularly a few days after things have gone by,” said Beauchamp in the Northeastern Global News report.