Winston churchill’s maxim that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result” has a political corollary: when a presidential candidate survives an assassination attempt, it can have a rallying effect. Exhilarated Republicans made a display of this in Milwaukee, where the party formally chose Donald Trump as its presidential nominee.
The attack on July 13th has also affected Democrats, who have been in turmoil since President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance last month. It disrupted the effort within the party to replace Mr Biden as its nominee. After the shooting, the atmosphere of shock made it untenable for Democratic rebels in Congress to advance their attempt to challenge Mr Biden’s candidacy. For a few days, no new House member or senator publicly called on the president to step aside.
Meanwhile, the president and his allies played for time. The strategy seemed to be working. Two weeks ago PredictIt, a political betting market, signalled that Mr Biden was more likely than not to be replaced. On July 16th it gave him a 70% chance of being the nominee. But Mr Biden has now said he would reconsider his campaign if doctors told him he had some medical condition. On July 17th he tested positive for covid-19. And his chances on PredictIt plunged again, to 38%.
Some Democrats held out hope that a fresh attempt to change candidates might be possible after Republicans wrap up their convention, if new polls showed Mr Trump with a larger lead than he already enjoys. Mr Biden has consistently waved off poll data. On July 15th, in an interview with Lester Holt of nbc News, he sounded almost Trumpian in his denial of reality: “There’s no wide gap between us. It’s essentially a toss-up race.”
In private, however, it appears that the Democrats’ leaders in Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, have made their concerns clear in separate meetings with Mr Biden. Nancy Pelosi, a former House speaker, is also said to have told the president about the perils facing Democrats if he stays in the race. And on July 17th Adam Schiff, an influential congressman from California who is running for a Senate seat (and is probably worried about Democrats’ prospects in several competitive House races in the Golden State), joined the chorus calling for Mr Biden to drop out. Pressed by Messrs Schumer and Jeffries, Mr Biden’s allies in the party have delayed by a week their plans to hold an online delegate vote ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Once Mr Biden is formally nominated there would, realistically, be no going back.
As The Economist went to press, the pressure on Mr Biden was rapidly mounting. Even assuming that he remains the Democrats’ nominee, he will have to consider how, in the aftermath of last Saturday’s attack, he can continue to call out Mr Trump over the threat that his restoration to the White House would pose to American democracy. Republicans led by J.D. Vance immediately blamed Mr Biden’s campaign messaging for fostering the assassination attempt.
In the nbc interview this week, Mr Biden apologised for a recent comment he made on a private call to donors in which he said it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye”. Yet he pivoted to attack Mr Trump for predicting a “bloodbath” if he loses in November. So much for calm and unity.
Mr Biden’s chances of victory have greatly diminished, but they have not vanished. He cannot undo his debate failure, reverse the ageing process or prevent the media from focusing on his frailty. But he can return to fundamentals by drawing a clear contrast between his record and the radicalism of Mr Trump and his running-mate, Mr Vance. He can lay out policies for a second term and encourage the grassroots movement mobilising to defend abortion rights.
