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Biden has long sought to paint Trump as a figure who would threaten democracy and the rule of law.
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After Saturday’s shooting in Pennsylvania, the democracy issue is coming further into focus.
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The incident could lead to the Biden campaign leaning into the issue or tweaking its message.
After former President Donald Trump was wounded during an assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, the 2024 campaign took a backseat as President Joe Biden sought to reassure Americans of their shared values.
The Biden campaign quickly paused “outbound communications” and took down television advertisements in the wake of the shooting.
Biden during his Oval Office address on Sunday repeatedly stressed the virtues of the US as he sought to guide Americans from a place of fear and anxiety to a unifying message.
“I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate, to pursue justice, to make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution,” the president said. “We stand for an America not of extremism and fury but of decency and grace.”
As Americans remain stunned by the assassination attempt on one of the country’s major-party presidential candidates, the Biden campaign now faces a more uncertain political landscape than the one they faced after the June debate.
Here’s a look at where things stand regarding the Biden campaign’s most daunting challenges in the coming days and weeks:
Calls for Biden to step aside are on ice
After Biden’s poor debate performance, there was a growing divide among Democrats between members who thought the president should remain the party’s standard-bearer and those who felt he needed to step aside to facilitate the selection of a new nominee.
Biden insists he’s staying in the race. And last week, the president sought to highlight his mettle as he hosted NATO leaders in Washington, met with a range of Democrats in making a continued case for his campaign, and stumped in must-win Michigan.
Still, more Democratic lawmakers called on Biden to exit the race.
But Saturday’s shooting has upended the political landscape in ways that will have important reverberations — with the incident so far grinding to a halt the movement to replace Biden.
As Biden aims to console the nation, Democratic leaders have also condemned political violence, and many in Washington are surely eyeing how Biden’s leadership on the issue might define the remainder of his campaign — should he continue in the race.
Will ‘defense of democracy’ remain a core campaign issue?
One of the core tenets of Biden’s reelection campaign has been the defense of democracy, as he has long argued that a second Trump term would threaten longstanding American institutions.
It’s an issue that Democrats ran on with a considerable amount of success in 2022, as they held the Senate, lost fewer seats than expected in the House, and won key governorships in the Midwest and Southwest.
But after the Butler shooting, many are wondering how Biden will campaign on the issue moving forward.
Several Republicans — including shooting survivor and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana — accused Biden and Democrats of hyping up the threat to democracy message in a way that has created a volatile political environmental.
However, it remains unclear what emboldened the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, to target Trump.
As the fallout from the shooting endures, Biden is set to resume his campaign after a high-touted Monday interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.
In a statement, a Biden campaign official said that after the interview, “the DNC and the campaign will continue drawing the contrast between our positive vision for the future and Trump and Republicans’ backwards-looking agenda over the course of the week.”
Democrats aren’t going to easily give up their depiction of Trump as a threat to democracy. But at least for the next few days — with the Republican National Convention taking center stage in Milwaukee — the party faces a tough balancing act as they weigh their unity message with the need to change the dynamics of a race that remains close.
Business Insider reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
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