HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Almost three months after a fateful turn of his head saved his life, former President Donald Trump is returning to Butler, Pennsylvania, hoping to recapture the sense of inevitability that he will return to the White House.
On July 13, Trump was the front-runner in the 2024 race, his criminal cases helping him outpoll and outraise President Joe Biden amid public concerns about the economy and immigration. When Trump rose to his feet with his fist in the air, bleeding from the ear after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire during a rally at Butler Family Farms, his return to the White House seemed inevitable.
Fast-forward 12 weeks later and with only 31 days of voting to go, the election has become a closer contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Trump campaign has billed the former president’s Butler rally as a “triumphant return” and “one of the most historic moments of this entire campaign season” as the Secret Service continues to be criticized after Crooks, 20, grazed Trump’s right ear, killed onetime volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore, and critically injured two other people.
“Despite an assassination attempt, President Trump will join tens of thousands to celebrate the life of Corey Comperatore, honor the strength of the other victims, and send a message to the world about the resilience and willpower of every man and woman who help make our nation great,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes told the Washington Examiner.
One of those attendees will include billionaire Telsa, SpaceX, and X owner and prominent Trump supporter Elon Musk.
“Since the first rally, President Trump and his supporters have been even more committed to the America First movement that will bring us a safer, more prosperous country,” Hughes said.
Since that rally polls have flipped. Trump had an average 3 percentage point lead over Biden on July 13, according to RealClearPolitics. Harris now has a 2-point polling edge over Trump, though the former president has been closing the gap. Harris also raised $361 million during August, the first month of her candidacy, for $404 million cash on hand, per her campaign. Trump raised $130 million during the same time period for $295 million in the bank.
For Republican strategist Alex Conant, Trump’s Butler rally is “definitely” an attempt to reclaim the political spotlight that has shone on Harris and overshadowed him since Biden suspended his campaign and endorsed his vice president to replace him as the Democratic presidential nominee.
“It’s not necessarily a reset, but he’s trying to recall a moment when he looked unbeatable,” Conant told the Washington Examiner of Trump.
Republican strategist Doug Heye added Trump desiring to use the “imagery” of the first assassination attempt, including the photo captured by Associated Press Evan Vucci of a bloodied, defiant former president with his fist in the air, is “totally understandable.” But Heye underscored polls are still within the margin of error.
“I don’t think the campaign is in a different place because the polling remains just as tight,” he said in an interview.
To that end, Trump appears to better understand the importance of appealing to all Republicans, in addition to independents, holding a press conference with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) about Hurricane Helene in Georgia on Friday after the pair’s very public feud over the Peach State’s 2020 election results. But the former president is unlikely to convey a unifying message, at least for long, if his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention in July, days after the shooting, is any indication.
“I don’t think that anybody is going to change their minds about Trump at this point, but it’d be interesting to see what happens if he returns to the unifying, post-partisan messaging he adopted and then dropped right after the assassination attempt,” Conant, the Republican strategist, said.
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley disagreed, contending the country has always been divided and unity is “just nonsense” aside from the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks.
“This election is not about Republicans vs. Democrats or liberals vs. conservatives. It’s about us vs. them. And fortunately, there are many more of us than there are of them,” Shirley told the Washington Examiner of “elites.”
In the White House press briefing room this week, Biden repeated that the 2024 election will be “free and fair” but he did not “know whether it will be peaceful” after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump already undermining the outcome.
Bobby, 44, who declined to disclose his last name outside the first Pennsylvania U.S. Senate debate between Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Republican challenger Dave McCormick in Harrisburg, told the Washington Examiner this week he is not worried about more violence.
“I do think the United States settles,” he said. “Some things make people crazy and it makes people nervous, but I have faith in the U.S. settling again, just that it’s going to be OK.”
The Harrisburg lifeguard argued the Butler assassination attempt has “humbled” Trump given his life was saved because he turned toward an illegal immigration chart as Crooks pulled the trigger, the bullet missing his brain.
Although there was almost a deific reverence toward Trump after the shooting, with Republican convention attendees bandaging their ears in solidarity, Nancy Woodcock, another McCormick supporter, joked “Trump is not God, but God can use people.”
“He’s not perfect. He’s not being voted in because he’s a pastor,” the York County former teacher nurse, who is in her 60s, said. “It’s encouraging to know that you have a champion when adversity comes.”
“We need somebody like that. We need someone strong,” she went on. “He needs to just stay on target with the policies that he’s had in the past, to talk about those policies to reassure people.”
Trump’s Butler rally simultaneously marks one month until Election Day, with the former president’s campaign projecting confidence in its ground game, regardless of Republican apprehension about its preparedness.
The Republican National Committee, for example, has been emphasizing outreach to low-propensity voters and encouraging voters to cast their ballots early, dismissing Trump’s complaints about absentee voting and election integrity.
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“As we enter the home stretch, the energy and momentum are only growing for President Donald J. Trump,” RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner. “Kamala Harris has been put on notice by voters turned off by her backwards leadership in the wake of Hurricane Helene, historic inflation, and botched border bloodbath.”
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was forced to resign in July over the Butler assassination attempt, with Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, making a second attempt on Trump’s life last month in Florida. Congress passed legislation last week to fund the federal government until Dec. 20, which included $231 million in additional money for the Secret Service, as independent investigations into both incidents are ongoing.