Second attempt on Donald Trump rekindles Kennedy-era fears but will have little impact on election outcome

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, left, and his wife Kelly with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago shortly before the drama unfolded at Mr Trump’s golf course nearby. Picture: X

Not since the Kennedy era have assassination attempts been such a terrible presence in American politics, but it says much about the times that this latest attempt to kill a would-be president is unlikely to ruffle the race.

The second attempt on Donald Trump’s life in as many months has shaken up an already extraordinary presidential election campaign. Details will continue to emerge about the motivations of the would-be shooter and questions will be asked about how he could get within 400m of Trump on a Florida golf course.

But the stark reality of modern US politics is that this potentially seismic event is unlikely to have anything more than a momentary impact on the fortunes of either Trump or his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris.

It was just over two months ago when Trump had part of his ear shot by would-be assassin Thomas Crooks at a rally in Butler Pennsylvania. That assassination attempt saw a bloodied Trump raise his fist in defiance as Secret Service bustled him off the stage, resulting in an instantly iconic photo of Trump surviving against the odds.

That photo was widely, and wrongly, assumed to have all but secured the election for the former president, who had already crushed an incoherent Joe Biden in their first presidential debate.

But that assassination, even when combined with the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee just days later, resulted in Trump’s approval rating rising just modestly before quickly stalling.

The entrance of Harris into the race just days later at the expense of Biden saw the start of a prolonged honeymoon for the new Democratic candidate which all but vanquished the first Trump assassination attempt to a mere footnote in this campaign.

There is even less reason to think that this second attempt, which was not a close call unlike the first shooting, will change the parameters of this election.

There will be some Trump voters who see this, regardless of the facts, as another sign the deep state is trying to kill Trump before the November election. This same conspiracy-happy crowd is trying to link the Democrats or the US government to the 20-year-old Crooks who shot Trump in the ear at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The FBI cannot find a motivation for that shooting or a link between Crooks and any wider plot. Only rusted-on Republicans believe conspiracy theories about the Crooks shooting but not the undecided voters who Trump needs to win the election.

Trump immediately sought to tap into this mood by couching this latest attempt on his life in Florida in terms of a larger conspiracy to silence him, saying “I am Safe and Well!”

“Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He then used the attack to launch a campaign fundraising appeal, saying “there are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us”.

Some Trump supporter will also try to blame the Democrats and their inflammatory rhetoric for this latest assassination attempt, ignoring the fact that Trump wrote the playbook for political incitement as demonstrated by the January 6 storming of the US Capitol building. Once again, those who believe these arguments are already dyed in-the-wool MAGA voters rather than those swinging voters who might propel Trump into the White House.

History also suggests that Trump will not receive any lasting benefit from these latest events. The assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan in 1981 saw his ratings rise by eight points only to drop away months later, while Gerald Ford had two assassination attempts against him within weeks in 1975 but his ratings rose only for a month before dropping again.

In political terms, this assassination attempt has the potential to marginally favour Trump only because it will temporarily take the attention away from Harris’s debate victory over Trump less than a week ago.

Harris’s clear win over Trump in that debate – as confirmed by the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll which shows Americans believe Harris won the debate by a 58 per cent to 36 per cent margin – is likely to result in a poll bounce for her in the days ahead as more post-debate polls are taken.

But it remains to be seen how much of a bounce she will get and whether it will be lasting. The cycles in this remarkable election campaign can be measured in days rather than months, and what happens now may be irrelevant in November. As terrible as this second assassination attempt is, don’t expect that it will play any role in who becomes the next president of the US.