President Joe Biden had just begun to turn the tables in his reelection bid when the attempt on Donald Trump’s life took away his most powerful tool: drawing attention to his opponent’s behaviour and second-term agenda.
Battered by doubts about his mental fitness and pressure to step aside, Biden fought back on Friday with an energetic speech in Detroit vowing to “shine a spotlight” on Trump — an argument he planned to drive home until Election Day in November.
About 24 hours later, and just under 200 miles away, shots rang out at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the chilling apex of an era in American politics defined by radicalised views and heated rhetoric.
Biden’s beleaguered campaign is now limited in how it can push forward. The outburst of political violence stymies his efforts to argue his case. It also threatens to undercut a core premise of his presidency — that he would restore decency and normalcy to national politics.
Instead, the president will hope that a unifying message in a time of crisis resonates with voters. Biden announced he would deliver a rare Oval Office address at 8 pm local time. He plans to call on Americans to come together and end political violence, a campaign official said.
“There’s no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden told reporters on Sunday at the White House. “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is as important than that right now.”
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The intense focus on the attempted assassination does offer Biden a reprieve from the conversation that had dominated headlines for weeks: whether he should withdraw after his disastrous debate. One Democratic donor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that they previously believed the party would be best served by replacing Biden, but there’s no way that could happen now without contributing to a sense of chaos.
The shooting — and Trump’s iconic, bloodied, fist-pumping response — seems certain to rally voters and donors behind the Republican candidate.
Business leaders Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, who previously resisted endorsing the former president, came out with public statements backing Trump within minutes of his being struck.
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It will be days or weeks before public opinion surveys are released assessing the aftermath. But former President Ronald Reagan saw a substantial increase in support when he was shot and wounded in 1981. Many presidential historians say that attack cemented his status in the conservative movement.
By contrast, Biden must balance how to push forward without seeming insensitive.
The president plans to reiterate his condemnation of violence in politics on Monday in a prime-time interview with NBC News, then his political operation will pivot back to drawing contrasts between Biden’s vision and Trump’s, the campaign official said. Biden will not shy away from talking about the stakes of the election, and his campaign sees the tragedy in Pennsylvania as reinforcing the central thesis of his campaign, the official added.
The president expressed sympathy for Trump on Sunday while vowing a “thorough and swift” federal investigation, a Secret Service probe into its security measures and an independent review of the shooting that he pledged to release to the American people.
Biden urged people not to “make assumptions” about the gunman’s “motives or his affiliations,” imploring the public to “let the FBI do their job, and their partner agencies do their job.”
With Election Day less than four months away, Biden badly needs to reverse his standing. He trails Trump by nearly 3 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Figures on both sides of the aisle have called for leaders to rise above the political fray and attempt to heal national divisions. 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.
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Already, the president’s campaign said it would pause messaging and television ads. Biden postponed a Monday speech in Austin to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. His campaign canceled a Monday event counter-programming the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Vice President Kamala Harris delayed political travel originally scheduled for Tuesday in Florida, according to a campaign official.
Biden will not be off the road for long. He plans to travel to Las Vegas to address Black and Latino advocacy groups on Tuesday and Wednesday and sit for another interview with BET, the White House said.
Republican Criticism
While law enforcement officials, and Trump himself, have not ascribed a motive to the shooter, some Republicans have already made unsubstantiated claims blaming Biden for motivating the would-be assassin.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a possible Trump running mate, posted on X. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Supporters of the president pointed to his call for unity after the shooting. Biden said he had a “short but good” call with Trump.
The Biden campaign official denounced the criticism from some GOP lawmakers, calling the politicisation of the tragedy an unacceptable abdication of leadership.
Still, the failed assassination attempt shifts the dynamics of the race in Trump’s favour.
It’s a remarkable twist of fate for Trump, who has glorified violence throughout his political career, from encouraging rally attendees in 2016 to “knock the crap” out of protesters to telling supporters to “fight like hell” on Jan. 6, 2021, just before they stormed the US Capitol.
“Biden’s inevitable ritual condemnation of political violence today (when it comes) will be insufficient and irrelevant,” posted Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries.
Defiant Images
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 biggest effect is likely to be in battleground Pennsylvania — a must-win for Biden — because that is where the shooting occurred, he said.
“The long and winding road for Joe Biden just became even longer and windier,” Luntz posted on X. “The shooting of Donald Trump will be significantly consequential in a way the shooter never intended.”
With Trump dominating the national conversation, there’s little Biden can do in the near term to push his anti-Trump message, mend Democratic divisions and shift the dynamics of the race in a way that reassures sceptics.
“This has got to help Donald Trump, at least for a while, with independents,” said Matthew Wilson, a Southern Methodist University political science professor. “Those images showing a defiant Donald Trump with blood on his face and his fist in the air are better advertising than anything money can buy.”
Others urged caution in overstating the impact of the moment. They pointed to a minimal shift in polls after other seismic events, including Biden’s debate catastrophe and Trump’s conviction in the New York hush-money trial.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive stalwart, expressed confidence in Biden’s chances as long as he focuses on his plans for a second term to bolster the social safety net, slash drug prices and expand workers’ rights.
“If he continues to talk about that, I think he gets reelected,” Sanders said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
