A second attempt on Donald Trump’s life this week has resulted in a spate of accusations and criticisms – and a growing concern about the extent and effect of violent rhetoric and political violence in this election campaign.
Golf Interrupted
A lone gunman, named later as Ryan Routh – a building contractor with a criminal record and a passion for the Ukrainian cause – was arrested in the perimeter of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course after a Secret Service officer noticed his rifle barrel through the bushes. It has since been reported that Routh did not discharge his weapon. The incident comes just two months after the 13 July shooting at a Republican campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.
Blame game
The responses of the campaigns to the second assassination attempt have been markedly different.
Reports suggest that the Republicans are using the event to support their narrative that Trump is a victim of the Democrats' incendiary language.
In an interview with Fox News Digital Trump claimed that this second attacker had acted on the “highly inflammatory language” of the Democrats. He said the campaign’s line that Trump is a “threat to democracy” has been responsible for the uptick in political violence during this campaign cycle.
Meanwhile, prominent Trump supporter and businessman Elon Musk posted – and subsequently deleted – a comment on his social media platform X that said “no one is even trying to assassinate” the Democratic president and Vice-President alongside a thinking-face emoji. The comment, which Musk said was a joke, was condemned as “irresponsible” by the White House and was brought to the attention of the Secret Service.
Musk, who has 200 million followers on X, has become a “presidential elections influencer.” He has posted a series of controversial social media messages on the 2024 US elections. According to media commentators, his commentaries have only served to inflame political tensions.
The Democrats, on the other hand, were quick to condemn the attack and express concern for Trump’s safety and wellbeing. Both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris called the former president and Republican nominee in the aftermath. In remarks made in Philadelphia, Biden stated that “there is no place for political violence in America.” He also called for greater support for the Secret Service.
Democrats also rebutted Trump’s accusations against them, citing his use of incendiary language towards immigrants as an example of rhetoric that is raising the temperature of the campaign. Following the first assassination attempt, the Harris campaign has moved away from the idea of portraying Trump as threat to the US and its fundamental freedoms, and more towards depicting him as “weird”, a line stemming from a viral comment by Vice-President nominee Tim Walz.
International impact
Russian state media claimed that the assassination attempt was “officially linked to Ukraine.” Routh had previously tried to integrate into Ukraine’s International Legion but was not successful, a claim Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council dismissed as a lie used for propaganda. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a statement condemning political violence and saying he was “glad to hear that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed”, with no mention of the gunman.
Campaign Catch Up
Reproductive rights reversal
Trump has lost the support of prominent anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, who says the Republican candidate is “making it impossible” to back him due to his shifting stance on abortion rights. She is now encouraging her 367,000 followers to stay home on 5 November. Trump’s strong anti-abortion stance was popular among his supporters in 2020, notably white evangelical Christians, who make up around 20–26% of the electorate and are highly represented in swing states. Some 84% of them voted for Trump in 2020, and though they are extremely unlikely to transfer their vote to Harris, their abstention in such a tight race could be enough to cost Republicans the White House.
Trump’s mixed messages to women
Trump has attempted to use the second attempt on his life to appeal to women voters. In remarks at a town hall event in Flint, Michigan, he made specific mention of a female member of the public who took photos of Routh’s vehicle and sent them to the authorities, and said “women are smarter than men”. However, his efforts to reach out to women may have been eclipsed by the negative press his supporter, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, garnered at the event. Huckabee Sanders said the Vice-President “Doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” and that “Her kids keep her humble”. The comments were widely interpreted as referencing Harris’s lack of biological children and resulted in a backlash, including from some Republicans.
Unions non-unanimous
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a major labour union, has decided not to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996. It referenced the low number of commitments from either nominee on issues of importance to the group, and said in recent polling of its 1.3 million members there was no evidence of a strong preference for one party over the other – despite releasing internal polling that showed 60% of its members favoured Trump.
Minutes after the national group’s announcement, the West Coast Teamsters broke with convention and endorsed Harris. Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42 – which comprise 300,000 members in California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam – issued a statement that praised Harris and Walz’s record of supporting expanded labour protections for workers.
Soft landing
The US Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by a half-point on Wednesday – its first cut since 2020. The move marks the beginning of an easing cycle – further cuts are expected after the Fed’s November and December meetings. The cut is bigger than expected and good news for Harris, as it indicates that inflation is now largely under control and the US economy is gearing up towards a soft landing.
What the Polls Are Saying
Harris’ lead on Trump has largely increased since the debate on 10 September. Aggregated polling data from RealClearPolitics on 19 September showed a 2-point advantage for Harris, up 0.9 points from the previous week, while The Economist puts Harris 4.3 points ahead of Trump on average (up 1.6 points).
The debate seems to have strengthened Harris’ credibility on the economy. The FT-Michigan Ross poll, conducted two days after the debate, showed that 48% of respondents who watched the debate said they trusted Harris more to manage the economy, against 42% saying they trusted Trump more, increasing the gap by 5 points compared to last month. On the other hand, Trump had an advantage among respondents who did not watch the debate, with 41% trusting him more with the economy, against 35% trusting Harris more.
The two candidates are still neck-and-neck in swing states, with Harris edging ahead in four out of seven states and Trump holding onto a slim lead in the remaining three, including Georgia and Arizona which Biden won in 2020. In Pennsylvania, the state most likely to decide the outcome of the election, Harris leads by 0.4 points.
Look Ahead
- Five states begin in-person early voting this month – Pennsylvania (16 Sept), Minnesota (20 Sept), Virginia (20 Sept), Vermont (21 Sept) and Illinois (26 Sept).
- The VP nominees will debate on 1 October.