Joe Biden’s presidential bid is now doomed while Donald Trump, just centimetres from death a week ago, has been deified as the unrivalled king of conservative America.
The most dramatic and consequential week in American politics since the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol building has utterly recast this presidential race.
Nothing symbolised the chasm between the candidate’s fortunes as the split-screen sight of Mr Trump being given a hero’s welcome by his adoring fans at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as Mr Biden struggled to navigate the stairs of his plane while he headed to Covid isolation at his Delaware home.
Just three weeks ago this presidential race was a virtual toss of the coin, and then came Mr Biden’s bumbling debate performance, a would-be assassin’s bullet and an RNC this week which showcased Trump’s absolute takeover of the Republican Party.
Almost no one at the senior levels of the Democratic Party now believes Mr Biden has the ability to defeat Mr Trump, and they rightly fear that if he contests the election, he will ruin Democrat hopes of taking the House and keeping the Senate. This, they warn, would allow a second Trump presidency to implement its MAGA agenda unfettered by congress.
Mr Biden looks likely to abandon the race within days in the face of almost total opposition to his re-election bid from the most senior Democrats in congress, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakaam Jeffries and Adam Schiff. If that was not enough, it was leaked that the most influential Democrat of all, Barack Obama, has told allies that he believes Mr Biden must reconsider his presidential bid.
While Mr Biden insists publicly that he intends to stay in the race, these Democrat leaders are now stepping up the pressure to ensure that he quits the race quickly.
Having failed during private meetings to persuade Mr Biden to end his campaign, Democrats crafted an explosive and co-ordinated series of media leaks about these meetings to increase the pressure on him.
If the President does not end his re-election bid within the week you can expect Democrat leaders to say publicly what they have so far told him privately.
Either way, it appears inconceivable that Mr Biden could stay in the race given the almost unanimous opposition of senior Democrats and dire polls which show him losing to Mr Trump in every swing state, and which show that 65 per cent of Democrat voters want him to end his campaign.
Democrats will be scrambling behind the scenes to work out what comes next. If and when Mr Biden drops out, do they throw the contest open to all comers or do they somehow seek to anoint Vice-President Kamala Harris?
The benefit of an open contest is that another candidate, such as Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg could come through who may have a better chance of defeating Mr Trump than Ms Harris.
But a contest also carries risks that the contest itself could prove divisive and damaging at the very time that the Democrats are trying to sell themselves to Americans as a viable alternative to Mr Trump.
There is also no guarantee that other candidates would want to contest this election.
At such short notice, they would face likely defeat. They may be content to let Ms Harris take the mantle, and then the fall, which would allow them to contest the 2028 election against a non-Trump candidate.
The easier immediate route would be for the Democrats to anoint Ms Harris as Mr Biden’s successor.
While she would enter the race as the underdog, and may fare no better than Mr Biden would, Democrats are desperate enough to take the gamble that perhaps she would be the game changer they desperately need.
By contrast, this week’s RNC in Milwaukee told us a lot about the buoyancy of the Trump campaign.
As expected, the near-assassination of the former president and his first-pumping after being shot has elevated him to almost cult-like status among the party faithful.
It served to turbocharge a convention that was already going to be a celebration of all things Trump.
But it has also helped vanquish any dissenting voices. The Republican Party is now almost entirely the party of Trump. The sight of his main rivals Nikki Haley and Ron De Santis standing on the RNC stage calling on their supporters to vote for Mr Trump symbolised the extent of his dominance.
His choice of fellow MAGA warrior JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate shows the enormous confidence Mr Trump has in his ability to win in November. He did not feel the need to round the ticket out by choosing a Hispanic, an African American or a woman who might have attracted those voting blocs, but rather he chose to go all MAGA.
Mr Trump delivered a more restrained acceptance speech than usual, in keeping with his call to encourage national unity rather than division. As the frontrunner, Mr Trump does not need to take unnecessary risks, especially while the Democrats are tearing themselves to bits.
This election is now Mr Trump’s to lose, but as this last week shows, absolutely anything can happen over the next 3½ months.
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