Where both parties go from here

A changed election.

President Biden addressing the nation last night. (Screengrab)

This was supposed to be the boring election.

We had a pair of pre-determined primaries, featuring the same two candidates as four years ago, neither of whom were particularly well-liked or popular. With news pageviews down and TV ratings sinking, it felt like nothing interesting was happening and no one was paying attention. “The Great Tune-Out of 2024,” Vanity Fair called it in January.

Then the last 18 days happened.

Rarely has a presidential cycle been so shaken by two campaign-altering events in such a short period of time. First, the Democratic Party was thrown into crisis by Joe Biden’s debate performance on June 27, sparking calls for his withdrawal from top lawmakers and donors. Then came the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, a historic moment defined by Trump’s survival and images of his defiance.

Now, both parties are reeling in their own ways. And, suddenly, Americans are paying attention again. 51 million viewers tuned into the debate. 24 million watched Biden’s subsequent press conference, making it the third most-watched non-sports event of the year (higher than the Oscars!) Numbers have not yet been released, but millions more have undoubtedly taken to their TV sets over the past 48 hours to watch the news after Trump’s shootings.

More made-for-TV moments are coming this week, as Republicans descend on Milwaukee for their national convention — and as Trump unveils his running mate, injecting yet another change into the campaign.

Where do things go from here? Let’s take it one party at a time:

TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS

First, and most importantly, Trump appears to be fine after his near-death experience on Saturday. Per Politico, he has “spent much of his time” since the shooting on the phone, receiving check-in calls from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and many other allies and world leaders — even President Joe Biden. (Their conversation was “short but good,” Biden said yesterday.)

“You would think he would be down,” Fox News host Lawrence Jones, who spoke with Trump, said on the network Sunday. “He’s in the saddle. He’s excited.”

Trump has yet to appear in public — although it appears an unscheduled showing on Night 1 tonight of the RNC is possible — and we haven’t heard much about the extent of his injuries. According to the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, who interviewed Trump on Sunday, the former president was wearing a “gauze bandage taped to his ear,” where he was shot the day before.

If you had asked me just after he was shot, I would have guessed that the assassination attempt would help Trump — mostly because it would energize his already-more-enthusiastic base. (In a CBS poll just before the shooting, 93% of Republicans said they will “definitely vote” in November, compared to 85% of Democrats, a notable enthusiasm gap.) The defiant image of Trump’s raised fist, yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!” to the audience, seemed to portend a candidate who would grow only more aggressive after being attacked, continuing to consolidate support by drawing on themes of grievance and persecution.

Remember, this was a candidate whose core campaign message was, “They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in their way” — and that was before he was quite literally shot at.

However, the initial reports out of Trumpworld suggest that the former president plans to soften his rhetoric after the shooting, not sharpen it. He told the Washington Examiner that he was in the process of completely rewriting his acceptance speech for the convention, going from an “unbelievable rip-roarer” attacking Biden to “a speech that is more unifying.”

“It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance,” he said in another interview, adding: “The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago.”

According to Politico, Trump’s team has reached out to the other convention speakers and asked them to “avoid focusing on the shooting or blaming the left for it”; per the Washington Post, the campaign is telling speakers to “dial it down, not dial it up.”

Of course, in the nine years since Trump walked down his gilded escalator, there have been other times when he has promised to “pivot” to a more unifying posture — none of which have panned out so far. Then again, he has never been inches away from death before.

From the interviews he has conducted since the shooting, it is clear that Trump is marveling at his survival; in each one, he’s mentioned how improbable it was that he would have turned his head “at the exact right time and in just the right amount” to avoid the bullet just before it was fired. “The chances of my making a perfect turn are probably one tenth of one percent, so I’m not supposed to be here,” he told one interviewer.

He also mentions God repeatedly, which is unusual for him; one source who spoke to Trump told the Washington Post that he was almost “spiritual” about the assassination attempt, “and that’s totally not normal from him.” The source added: “He thinks he was handed a gift from God. He can’t believe it.”

Whether this new tone will last is anyone’s guess. I will say, however, if Trump does choose to respond to the attack by attempting to unify the country — it could be even more beneficial to his campaign than unifying his base by aggression would have been. Especially after last month’s debate, there are many voters who don’t want to vote for Biden — but are also skeptical of casting a ballot for Trump. Softening his rhetoric could create a permission structure for these voters to support him, bringing over some of the “double haters” who may have previously been turned off by his swirl of controversy.

One early indication of Trump’s new theme is his campaign’s post-shooting decision to invite Nikki Haley, his vanquished rival, to address the convention. (She had originally not been invited.) The next major test of his campaign direction will be his VP pick. While two of his short-listers, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), have responded to the shooting with fairly typical messages, the third — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has been much sharper, blaming Biden for the attack.

“Today is not just some isolated incident,” he wrote on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.”

If Trump chooses Vance, it would likely be a signal that his unifying tone will be short-lived; picking Rubio or Burgum (or another contender) would be more suggestive of a candidate who is pivoting away from aggression after being shot at.

According to news reports, the vice presidential announcement could come as early as today.

BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATS

The morning of Trump’s shooting found President Biden in a very tense Zoom call. Biden, still parrying concerns from Democrats after his post-debate press conference, was meeting with members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition. “It was awful,” one lawmaker told Axios, recounting that Biden “started shouting” at Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) after Crow questioned his continued candidacy.

“That was a complete disaster,” said another. “We saw the same Joe Biden from the debate.”

Calls for Biden to leave the race had already slowed by that point — but the drip-drip-drip was still continuing. Now, it has stopped completely.

While the should-he-stay-or-should-he-go episode appears to be over, Democrats have now entered an entirely new purgatory. The Biden campaign was quick to pause its advertising and political messaging after the shooting; now, it faces the question of when to resume campaigning. Especially since some Republicans have blamed the shooting on Biden’s description of Trump as a threat to democracy, once campaigning continues, the president will be closely watched to see if he resumes that rhetoric entirely — or if he goes after Trump more gingerly in light of the attack.

Biden was scheduled to visit Austin today for a speech on democracy, while Vice President Kamala Harris was set to visit Florida for an abortion event tomorrow. Both trips have been canceled since Trump’s shooting.

That isn’t to say that Biden has laid low, however. In fact, it has been one of the most media-heavy stretches of his presidency: coming off of a rare press conference last week, Biden has addressed the nation three times since the shooting, including in an Oval Office address last night, only the third of his tenure.

Of course, his sudden blitz of appearances can largely be attributed to his presidential duties in a time of crisis — but it is hard to ignore the political considerations at play as well. Just at a time when Democrats were clamoring to hear more from Biden, calling on him to prove his worth as a nominee, he has put himself in the limelight much more frequently.

When Biden has spoke, he has also stressed the theme of unity. “There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” he said last night from the Oval Office. “You know, the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that.”

After the debate, Biden had just been beginning to sharpen his attacks on Trump, in response to Democratic worries. Now that the window appears closed to replace him on the ticket, we’ll see how the affects his messaging — and complicates his efforts to regain momentum in a changed race. Biden’s next opportunity to project calm — for the country and for nervous Democrats — will come tonight, in a primetime interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.

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More updates.

• The rally attendee who was killed on Saturday has been identified as 50-year-old Corey Comperatore. A former fire chief, Comperatore threw himself over his wife and daughter during the shooting, sacrificing his life to save theirs.

• The two victims who were injured have been identified as 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver. Both are now in stable condition.

• Investigators continue to probe 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ life, attempting to deduce a motive for the attack. Crooks was a 2022 high school graduate who received a community college degree two months ago and had been working at a local nursing home.

• According to the FBI, Crooks had no criminal record or history of mental illness. One classmate remembered him as conservative, although others said he wasn’t vocal about any political views one way or the other. A registered Republican with a lone recorded political donation — a $15 contribution to a progressive group in 2021 — he had little online footprint.

• Classmates have largely described him as a loner; some have said he was bullied in high school. He clearly had an affinity for guns: in addition to wearing camouflage or hunting attire to school, he was a member of a local gun club. In high school, he reportedly applied to join a school rifle club, but was denied.

• Authorities found materials for two explosive devices in his car and believe they may have found a third at his home. The FBI, which is examining the attack as a possible case of domestic terrorism, said Crooks is believed to have operated alone. His parents are cooperating fully with the investigation.

• The Secret Service is facing rising scrutiny for its failure to apprehend Crooks before he fired at Trump, allowing him to camp out on a nearby roof as a former president addressed an audience. According to the Associated Press, a local law enforcement officer climbed to the roof where Crooks was located just before the shooting. Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, and “the officer retreated down the ladder.” Crooks then shot at Trump.

• Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in a statement this morning that the agency will “participate fully” in an independent review ordered by President Biden.