Trump shot, Biden dead

Last Saturday, July 13, Republican front-runner Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shot went through his left ear and barely left any after-effects on the candidate; less fortunate was one of the attendees who died as a result of the shooting. Without enough time to determine whether this remains an anecdote or triggers a series of events of political violence, what we can know is that the (metaphorical) bullet hit Biden's campaign.

Historical precedent shows us that assassination attempts and political assassinations have a major impact on voters' political behavior. These events generate a great deal of sympathy around the victim of the attack. In the following days, weeks and months, a large-scale movement of support for Trump will be mobilized socially, politically and economically. The transformation from controversial candidate to martyr to the cause is inevitable.

Reagan, in the hospital in 1981, recovering from the bullet that nearly ended his life. GETTY IMAGES

The most immediate and similar precedent that exists is that of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. The newly elected President of the United States suffered an assassination attempt in March 1981 that kept him in the hospital for several days. This event benefited him politically with a 13-point increase in popularity and approval polls. Although there are notable differences between the two cases, as Reagan was President and had just swept the elections just 5 months earlier, i.e., he was not as polarizing as Trump. However, there are several elements that make us foresee how this event will turn out in the upcoming presidential campaign.

The first factor is that Biden is a very weak leader. His performance in the presidential debate a couple of weeks ago (explained previously here: Opinion: The Democratic party should force Biden to be a lame duck) as with his cluelessness at the NATO Summit in Washington have sparked a budding rebellion in the Democratic party. With each passing day, Biden has less support internally in the party and externally among the population. The image of a leader unable to orient himself, focus and lead is worsening with each public appearance. The average of the polls of comparative support with other presidents show a higher attrition than all the others at this stage of his term.

Comparative tables of the net support level of U.S. Presidents from Reagan to Biden. Source: FiveThirtyEight

Despite these very negative numbers, Biden has repeatedly made the argument that he is the only one who can stop Trump's rise, as he did in 2020. Previously that position was complicated to sustain but not impossible. Trump had been convicted of using 2016 election campaign money to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels and his judicial future pointed to more possible convictions. His threats against the democratic system were credible as on January 6, 2021 he had been the moral leader of the assault on Capitol Hill. Trump had become the first person to have occupied the Oval Office to cause armed persons to enter the US legislative branch and to be convicted of a crime. The campaign was entering this uncharted territory and in this situation Biden's position could be defended. However, Saturday's shooting has blown Trump's eminently negative image out of the water. Now he is the strong man who, despite being shot, raises his fist and comes out on his own.

New York Times cover with condemnation of Donald Trump (May 2024).

For the moment the presidential race, if there are no changes, is about Americans having to choose between a controversial, unpopular leader, defined by the evident deterioration of his cognitive abilities, and the survivor of an attack that directly connects him to the most popular Republican leader of the last 50 years.

Relevant figures of the most hard-line wing of the Republican Party such as Lauren Boebert (link) or Marjorie Taylor Green (link) have already pointed to Biden and the Democrats as the ones responsible for the attack. These statements made in the heat of the moment seek to stir up the more radicalized and conspiratorial base; and in a campaign as polarized as this one pose a real risk of violent escalation. Pending the dissipation of the fog of war and the clarification of the facts, this event will mark a before and after in the presidential campaign and its effects concern the whole world and Europe in particular.