An assassination attempt on Trump, calls for Biden to withdraw and an anti-Ukrainian vice-presidential candidate. US presidential campaign highlights

In recent weeks, the US presidential campaign has seen several events that have affected both the perception of the candidates and the campaign process itself. A 20-year-old man tried to kill Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. The American media, celebrities and even Democratic Party politicians are trying to force Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy because of his age and health. Donald Trump has chosen a new vice-presidential candidate with more right-wing views on US domestic and foreign policy.

Svidomi explains how the assassination attempt on Trump will affect his campaign, who could replace Joe Biden in the presidential race, and who is James David Vance, the vice-presidential candidate chosen by Donald Trump.

On July 13, 2024, an assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania. The assassin only damaged Trump's ear and was neutralised by security.

The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old. He registered as a member of the Republican Party in 2021. Crooks was a member of a shooting club. His views, including his political views, were described by the US media and law enforcement as "radical", although he expressed them mainly online. Before he attempted to shoot Trump, Thomas Crook had never been reported to the police or been convicted of a crime. His work colleagues and neighbours described him as a "nice guy".

The Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately opened an investigation into the attempted assassination. Trump's opponent in the presidential election, US President Joe Biden, condemned the attack and called on Americans to "make peace". 

Trump himself thanked the US Secret Service for saving him. "It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country," Donald Trump said of the attack. 

The assassination attempt certainly brought new media attention to Trump in the United States and around the world. In the first few hours after the assassination attempt, users on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) posted more than 228,000 posts about the assassination attempt. Thousands of posts about the assassination attempt were also published on Facebook, Reddit and even Telegram, which exiled Russian businessman Pavel Durov owns.

Oleksandr Kraiev, director of the North America programme at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, said the assassination attempt had an impact on Trump's approval rating.

"Just a few days after the assassination attempt, his rating went up by 1.5%, so it was not an ultimatum breakthrough for him, but it definitely rallied his base," he said, explaining the impact of the assassination attempt on the situation with voters' commitment to the candidates. 

And indeed, while in June, around 44% of voters were ready to vote for Trump, after the assassination attempt, the percentage was almost 46%.

But the most important thing for Trump is the impact of the assassination attempt on his perception among voters, even if it is his core constituency, says Oleksandr Kraiev.

But the attempted assassination of Trump has also affected the mood within the Democratic Party. While party members had been cautiously considering the idea of replacing Joe Biden in the presidential election since the beginning of July, they began to put pressure on him after the assassination attempt. The Associated Press reported this.  

Doug Klain, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, believes that the assassination attempt did not change the opinion of the voters, but activated his electorate.

"What the assassination attempt has done is significantly increase the enthusiasm of Trump voters and Republicans—a core part of Trump's message for years has been that he is being persecuted because he fights for Americans. Even though the shooter was a Republican himself, this has allowed Trump and his allies to reiterate that core message about Trump being the persecuted champion of the people. As he said in his speech at the Republican Convention, his life was saved by the grace of God to continue fighting for the American people—it's a message that has significant resonance with his base of voters, but it doesn't seem to have much of an impact on those who aren't already planning to vote for him".

On June 28, 2024, Biden and Trump debated on CNN. The results of the debate were disastrous for Biden. The international sociological company Ipsos surveyed the viewers of the debate, and 73% of the respondents said that Biden's debate was "terrible". Respondents began to worry about his health and performance if he won.

Trump did not win the debate. Although respondents rated his condition better than Biden's — 40% of respondents thought Trump had a better debate compared to 33% who thought it was worse. However, Trump's position on policy issues was not well received. 49% said they would vote for Trump after the debate, compared to 43% for Biden. Before the debate, precisely 44% were ready to vote for both candidates, according to Ipsos.

After the debate, these polls and the perception of Joe Biden influenced the media and the Democratic Party's position on his candidacy. On June 28, the New York Times published an editorial calling for Biden to withdraw his candidacy. The journalists believe that Biden "failed his own test — the debate he challenged Trump to" and that his health and performance jeopardise his next term as president.

American actor and producer George Clooney called on Biden to withdraw his candidacy. Earlier, George Clooney hosted a campaign fundraiser for Biden in California, where he raised more than $28 million. The event took place on June 15, the day Ukraine hosted the peace summit in Switzerland. Joe Biden attended the California event instead of the peace summit.

Democratic Party leaders, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are also privately urging Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy. Members of the Democratic Party are becoming increasingly unhappy with his candidacy. According to the Associated Press, more than two-thirds of party members want Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.

However, if Biden withdraws, his campaign cannot be transferred to a new candidate. The new candidate would have to start from scratch, including raising funds. The closer we get to the election, the less time the Democrats have to create a new campaign. But they are already thinking about new candidates. 

Oleksandr Kraiev talks about potential candidates to replace Joe Biden that the Democratic Party is considering.

"So far, we have three names. One is Kamala Harris, the vice president, who is the most obvious but also the weakest substitute. She has a considerable distrust rating (44% distrust according to the Statista data platform — ed.) because she has not fulfilled any of her duties as vice president. Another one is California Governor Gavin Newsom, a younger version of Biden with identical policies at home and abroad. And the third one is Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, Biden's personal envoy on the most important issues. Pete was also involved in the Crimea platform and worked on the Ukrainian peace formula. He has a great deal of political experience in local politics (he was mayor of South Bend, Indiana — ed.) and federal politics, so he is well suited to leading the young wing of the Democratic Party," he says.

According to Reuters, Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party's top choice. She is already known to US voters, younger than Donald Trump, and already part of Biden's campaign. And if she wins, she will continue Biden's policies.

According to an NBC poll, the vast majority of Democrats dissatisfied with Biden will vote for Harris. She is also on par with Donald Trump — 44% will vote for him, and 47% will vote for her if they are candidates.

If Joe Biden does not withdraw on his own, the Democratic Party at its convention in Chicago on August 19 will have to support his candidacy, which was elected in the internal party primaries (elections — ed.) in early 2024.

Replacing the candidate poses a certain threat, says Kraiev. Biden was elected in an internal party election. The party committee will appoint a new candidate.

"Even after the nomination, if something happens to Biden and he withdraws for health reasons or of his own volition, he can be replaced by one of the Democrats. But that choice will be made by the Democratic Party Committee, the central committee that runs the party itself. There will be much less democracy in this replacement," concludes Oleksandr Kraiev. 

On July 18, Joe Biden announced that he had contracted Covid-19. He said he could easily tolerate the disease because he had been vaccinated. Axios reports that "the pressure on Biden to step aside as a candidate has been rising to intolerable levels". 

"If Joe Biden were to withdraw his candidacy, it would be a historic decision without precedent in modern American politics. There is no mechanism for the Democratic Party to remove him as presumptive nominee, and the choice would have to be his. There are real concerns about what the plan is if he does step aside—important logistics issues such as whether a new candidate can get their name on ballots across the U.S., and strategic questions like whether a replacement really can have a better chance at defeating Trump. Time is running short to make a decision—the Democratic National Convention begins in less than a month and the first early voting begins in September. This election doesn't happen in November, it starts in six weeks. Starting the race from scratch would be a historic gamble for Democrats" — says Doug Klain.

On July 15, at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump announced his vice-presidential candidate, with whom he will continue campaigning. It was James David Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio.

Vance is young, 39 years old. He has been in politics only recently, namely since 2022, when he won the election to the Senate from the Republican Party, the upper house of the US Congress.

During his tenure as a senator, J.D. Vance expressed conservative right-wing views. He opposed tax increases but called for tax increases on multinational mergers "to fight oligarchy". He also called for higher university fees. He was in favour of raising the minimum wage in the US but was sceptical about insurance contributions by large companies. This economic policy is called "economic populism" — when politicians try to express their protectorate over the working class first and foremost and advocate an "anti-monopoly" of production by big business.

He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and the free distribution of weapons. Vance supports the prohibition of pornography and the federal criminalisation of transgender medical services for minors.   

J.D. Vance opposed financial and military aid to Ukraine.

The invasion did not change J.D. Vance's mind about Ukraine. In April 2024, he voted against financial aid in the US Senate. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Vance wrote that he was "opposed to the United States continuing to fund this war". He believes that aid will not change the course of the war and that Ukraine should cede territory. In his view, the goal of "going back to the 1991 borders is fantastical", and Ukraine should start negotiations with Russia.

Vance has also repeatedly criticised Ukraine for corruption. In December 2023, he said,  "Ukrainian ministers are using aid to buy a new yacht". The BBC found the website where James Vance allegedly got this information about Ukrainian officials buying "expensive yachts". The website is called DC Weekly, and its founder is John Mark Dugan, a former US Marine and Florida police officer who moved to Russia in 2016. 

The site is currently inactive. However, information about the yachts was distributed from it by Marjorie Greene Taylor, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives. The BBC noted that the site is "probably a specially created tool for laundering narratives with links to the Russian government".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also supported James Vance's candidacy. "He’s in favour of peace, he’s in favour of ending the assistance that’s being provided [to Ukraine], and we can only welcome that because that’s what we need – to stop pumping Ukraine full of weapons, and then the war will end," he said.

But Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance not because he opposes aid to Ukraine but because he supports Donald Trump's policy of isolationism. Vance, like Trump, believes that the US should stop actively providing security in Europe by keeping US troops on NATO bases. NATO members in the EU should also look after their own armies. The US should fight illegal immigration, especially from Mexico, and focus fully on Pacific security and East Asia. 

In June 2024, Vance said  that he believed "the president of the United States should have immunity" in an interview with CBS. Donald Trump has long fought the US justice system to obtain partial immunity from prosecution in the case of conspiracy to cancel the 2020 election. In July 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump should have "partial immunity from prosecution".

In October 2021, J.D. Vance supported Donald Trump's position on losing the 2020 presidential election, claiming "widespread voter fraud". 

Oleksander Kraiev believes that Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance because he will not pursue an independent policy and will be dependent on Trump himself.

"Trump does not share power, and I think Vice President Mike Pence, who was with him in his first term, would have illustrated this perfectly. Trump will not allow his vice president to have independent policies, views, activities, and narratives. So, I don't think Vance will be a threat to us or politics in general. Although, yes, it is worth saying that his rhetoric, his general narrative is still negative for us," he says. 

Mike Pence refused to endorse Trump's position on "voters fraud" in the 2020 presidential election. James Vance now appears to be on Trump's side on everything, right to the end.

On July 18, Donald Trump officially agreed to run for the Republican presidential nomination. In his speech, he reiterated that he would end "every international crisis", including the war between Russia and Ukraine, which was "created by the current administration".