What the attempted Trump assassination means for the 2024 election

Insights from The Conversation, Zeteo, NBC News, and Semafor

The News

The attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump during an election rally in Pennsylvania will inevitably shape the electoral campaign going forward, analysts have argued.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties are reckoning with what the attack will mean for the November election, and for an already deeply polarized American society. “No matter what, everything changes from here on out,” a political strategist told Al Jazeera.

SIGNALS

The attack is likely to give Trump’s campaign new vigor

After the attack, the messaging from Trump and his party was that “the show must go on” as the Republican National Convention gets under way, NBC News reported. The attempted assassination is likely to give Trump’s reelection bid new strength, The Conversation noted: The pictures of Trump “are more valuable than hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign ads.” Some are already predicting a Trump landslide victory as a result of the attack, and prominent figures, including Elon Musk, endorsed the former president on Saturday. But whether Trump has already won the election is still unclear, Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan said. “We are in a chaotic moment, a truly historic and unprecedented moment, on multiple levels,” he said. “Anyone who makes predictions about our political future right now risks making a fool of themselves, in my view.”

The Democratic party stopped discussing Biden’s future — but that can’t last

The attack has made the conversation about replacing US President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee feel like “ancient history,” NBC’s Carol Lee said. “Folks are not discussing that,” one Democratic leadership aide told Semafor. “At the moment, everyone is grateful that the former president is stable and safe.” But this can’t last forever, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reported, and speculation has continued about whether the attack would cut off or speed up the decision about Biden’s replacement. Trump’s attempted assassination could be an opportunity for the Democrats to reposition their campaign and present themselves as a beacon of unity and calm, one expert argued in The Conversation, but added that the party will need a new candidate to convey this message.

Attack could polarize the US even more

It’s likely that the United States will be torn apart further by the attack on Trump, at a time when it already feels like Americans are split into “two countries, even two realities,” The New York Times noted. Trump’s advisers have pushed him to tone down his inflammatory rhetoric to seize this political moment, but it’s unclear how long a subdued version of the former president will last, Axios added. Conspiracy theories have already started to emerge: Some Republicans blamed Democrats for the assassination attempt, while one prominent Democratic strategist pushed reporters to consider whether the attack had been “staged.” While Democrats criticize “disinformation” spread on the American right, “the same patterns of thinking seem to affect all parts of American politics,” Semafor’s Kadia Goba wrote. Ultimately, the attack shows “a democracy at its breaking point,” a pollster argued in The Telegraph.