Washington, DC – How does an assassination attempt transform a presidential race?
It is a question that United States voters have had to ask twice this election season, with Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump on Sunday facing yet another incident the FBI has said it is investigating as an attempt on his life.
That comes just two months after Trump survived a gunman’s bullet while on stage during a campaign rally.
A day after the latest attack, its implications are far from clear, but Trump’s response has been unequivocal. After a US Secret Service agent fired on the gunman at Trump’s golf resort in Florida, the former president issued a defiant statement, vowing “I will never surrender!” That echoed his previous sentiment in the moments after the July attack in Pennsylvania, in which a bloodied Trump pumped his fist in the air, chanting “fight, fight, fight”.
As in July, Trump on Monday again blamed the second attack on presidential candidate US Vice President Kamala Harris, saying it was a result of Democrats’ “rhetoric” and “lies” that bullets are flying.
It is a familiar response, according to James Davis, a Republican strategist, who said Trump’s campaign likes to remind voters of the July attack, which Trump survived by a matter of millimetres.
“It is kind of a reminder of how close of a call July actually was, how significant it was for so many people,” Davis told media.
That could turn out some key voters in battleground states, a potentially significant boost in an election expected to be decided by just a few thousand votes in key areas.
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
