Election News: Second Trump Assassination Attempt, and Poll Updates

Election Day is 6 weeks away. Here's what's going on in the polls and the presidential candidates' campaigns.

September 24, 2024

• Last week, former President Donald Trump faced what "appear[ed] to be an attempted assassination" at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. This is the second assassination attempt against Trump this year after a gunshot injured him during a rally in Pennsylvania in July.
• On Sept. 25, the Secret Service saw the suspect, Ryan Routh, pointing a rifle at Trump from the bushes and fired several shots at the suspect. Routh was arrested a short time after fleeing the scene. Prosecutors uncovered a letter allegedly written by Routh planning out his assassination attempt on Trump. 
• Former President Donald Trump told an interviewer last week that if he were to lose November's election, he would not run again. He said:

"No...I think that that will be, that will be it. I don't see that at all. I think that hopefully we're gonna be successful."

• This week, Trump and Harris are focusing on immigration, a priority for many voters. Both candidates have emphasized increased border security, with Harris supporting a bill that would add 1,500 Customs and Border Patrol agents to the border, and investments in detection technology to stop fentanyl crossing the border. Trump is more focused on finishing his border wall and emphasizing deportation measures. While Harris is opposed to mass deportation, she is more central-leaning on the issue of immigration than left-leaning.
• The polls currently show Harris in the lead, but they can't be expected to show the exact match of Election Day's final results. Nevertheless, if Harris were to win every state where she's currently in the lead, she would have the necessary electoral votes to win the election.

September 4, 2024

• The U.S. announced a forthcoming effort to counter Russian influence in the 2024 presidential election, specifically targeting fake news sites attempting to sway American voters. 
• U.S. officials said they'll seize web domains that the Kremlin's state-run media uses to spread propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022. The Justice Department will get involved in the effort by indicting two Russian employees of RT, a state-owned broadcaster, and takedown the Russian influence campaign known as Doppelganger. The Department of State has sanctioned five Russian state-funded news outlets, including RT, Ruptly, and Sputnik.
• Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said:

"The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power engages in political activities or seeks to influence public discourse."

• American spy agencies gauged that the Kremlin would favor former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election. The State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information about Russian or other foreign interference in American elections.

August 27, 2024

• As more Americans note having a favorable view of Harris, the Trump campaign is ramping up the attempt to portray her in a negative light. They've claimed that she is a D.E.I. hire, a radical communist, not intelligent, Canadian, only recently became Black, and more. Most recently, Trump's team has criticized her for "dodging the press," saying she "doesn't want to talk about her radical agenda."
• Poll trackers continue to show Harris and Trump neck-and-neck nationally and across key swing states. As August wraps up, Harris is a few points ahead of Trump. Experts suspect the uptick in voter preference may be due to the success of the Democratic National Convention and hope Harris can sustain the wave of support.
• Support for Harris has strayed outside her party lines, as more than 200 people who worked for President George W. Bush and Sens. Mitt Romney and John McCain have signed a letter endorsing the vice president. The letter said: 

"We have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That's to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable."

• Onlookers see this as a reflection of how Trump has transformed the Republican party under his leadership and the growing group of Republicans who oppose his candidacy.

August 14, 2024

• A week after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, a Monmouth University poll found that voters are feeling more enthusiastic about the election with Biden leaving the ballot.
• Nearly 70% of respondents said they were enthusiastic about this presidential election. When it came down to Biden and Trump, enthusiasm never went above 50%. Monmouth University Polling Institute's director, Patrick Murray, said:

"This is clearly a different ballgame. The nominee change has raised the ceiling for potential Democratic support in the presidential contest by a small but crucial amount, at least for now."

• At the same time, the Cook Political Report released polling results that show Harris ahead of or tied with Trump in six of the seven battleground states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This is a turnaround from May when Trump was beating Biden in each of the seven states. 
• Meanwhile, Harris and Walz are preparing for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, where they'll introduce their campaign and platform to the larger swath of voters. 

August 6, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election. Here's a breakdown of Walz's history:

• Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a former member of Congress, former educator, and veteran, is described as a commonsense choice for Harris. Walz, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, was a leading voice for LGBTQ+ rights and has delivered free school meals, abortion protections, gun restrictions, legal marijuana, and more for his state. The Minnesota governor captured the internet's attention in the past few weeks by calling Trump and his supporters "weird." Since then, the Democratic party has honed in on the word, using it as a campaign tactic to bring Trump down.

How do you feel about the upcoming election?

-Jamie Epstein