People who weren’t voting for him before aren’t going to start now just because he was shot
The decided voters are pretty much irrelevant. They made up their mind a long time ago. The issue is the swing voters.
Unfortunately, we have evidence that surviving an assassination attempt leads to a boost in approval. Reagan surviving an assassination attempt led to a big jump in his approval rating:
"In the wake of the assassination attempt, Reagan’s approval ratings jumped – providing a new baseline that propelled his legislative agenda forward and helped translate to his broad-based re-election. "
Generally, surviving an assassination attempt gives you a boost in support. That is a pattern that has been repeated often. Another recent example is the attempted assassination of Bolsonaro in Brazil. He’s often called Brazil’s Trump. This case could be different, but odds are it’s not going to result in undecided voters saying “hmm, the shooter was probably right, I’ll side with him”.
The situation in the US was a disaster even before this happened. IMO this can only make things worse.
This. It could have an energizing effect on his voting base, especially with the way the old bastard never shuts up about anything. His mouth is a faucet of incendiary idiocy; surviving this is like smashing it off the sink.
Generally speaking, the economy tends to be the biggest driver for voting trends, and “the economy” is doing fine by most measures. Yeah, things are expensive, but they’re not getting expensive faster, stocks are pretty stable, and borrowing rates are stabilizing and even coming down a little.
By all historical signals, that should give Biden a bit of a boost, and what he needs to do to win is successfully blame Trump for inflation (i.e. inflation from COVID relief) and other COVID-related market problems. Point out that he pushed for keeping borrowing rates low, which would’ve made inflation so much worse. If the average person understands that Trump’s policies were instrumental in causing the problems we see today (and most economic indicators have a few years lag), then Biden should get a boost.
But to do that, Biden needs to string two coherent sentences together, and he seems to be struggling at that…
The decided voters are pretty much irrelevant. They made up their mind a long time ago. The issue is the swing voters.
Unfortunately, we have evidence that surviving an assassination attempt leads to a boost in approval. Reagan surviving an assassination attempt led to a big jump in his approval rating:
"In the wake of the assassination attempt, Reagan’s approval ratings jumped – providing a new baseline that propelled his legislative agenda forward and helped translate to his broad-based re-election. "
https://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/30/avlon.reagan.shooting/index.html
It helped that it was a re-election and our economy was experiencing a huge upswing due to the tech boom at the time from Silicone Valley.
Trump’s situation is very different. But couple this with Biden’s recent public, let’s say faux pas. And we do have a recipe for disaster brewing.
Los Angeles? But seriously…
Generally, surviving an assassination attempt gives you a boost in support. That is a pattern that has been repeated often. Another recent example is the attempted assassination of Bolsonaro in Brazil. He’s often called Brazil’s Trump. This case could be different, but odds are it’s not going to result in undecided voters saying “hmm, the shooter was probably right, I’ll side with him”.
The situation in the US was a disaster even before this happened. IMO this can only make things worse.
This. It could have an energizing effect on his voting base, especially with the way the old bastard never shuts up about anything. His mouth is a faucet of incendiary idiocy; surviving this is like smashing it off the sink.
While I love that analogy, thinking about faucets and Trump in the same sentence just has me thinking about his water pressure rants.
Generally speaking, the economy tends to be the biggest driver for voting trends, and “the economy” is doing fine by most measures. Yeah, things are expensive, but they’re not getting expensive faster, stocks are pretty stable, and borrowing rates are stabilizing and even coming down a little.
By all historical signals, that should give Biden a bit of a boost, and what he needs to do to win is successfully blame Trump for inflation (i.e. inflation from COVID relief) and other COVID-related market problems. Point out that he pushed for keeping borrowing rates low, which would’ve made inflation so much worse. If the average person understands that Trump’s policies were instrumental in causing the problems we see today (and most economic indicators have a few years lag), then Biden should get a boost.
But to do that, Biden needs to string two coherent sentences together, and he seems to be struggling at that…
Who tf is still a swing vote though in the States. If your head is stuck that far into the sand, are you even going to hear about Trump getting shot?