Republican nominee Donald Trump returned to the Butler fairgrounds on Saturday, Oct. 5, the site of the attempted assassination in July. For Trump supporters, the rally was an opportunity to energize the Republican voter base in a critical swing state, with only a month until the Nov. 5 Election Day. However, Trump returned to Butler under drastically different political circumstances than when he was shot at nearly three months ago.
The July assassination attempt was the first time a president or candidate was attacked since the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981 and has led to intense scrutiny over the safety of the Republican candidate and the effectiveness of the Secret Service.
Speaking from behind a transparent screen, Trump honored Corey Comperatore, the man fatally shot in July, with a moment of silence. The rally also featured several speakers. Eric Trump spoke to blame political opposition for the assassination attempt: “They tried to kill him,” he said. “And it’s because of the Democratic Party; they can’t do anything right.”
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk also appeared, speaking on Trump’s personal character. “The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire,” Musk said. “We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist pumping after getting shot.”
Trump’s return to Butler is as much of a personal triumph for him and his supporters as it is a tactical move. Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy announcement seemed to have derailed the Trump campaign and Republicans’ beliefs in a way, in that Trump can no longer leverage the assassination attempt to simply coast back into the Oval Office. According to the New York Times, the two are effectively tied in Pennsylvania as per polling averages, while Harris holds a slight edge over Trump in national surveys.
Trump lost Pennsylvania in the 2016 election and needs to appeal to conservative strongholds, such as Butler County, in order to win the state. Harris has also intensified her campaign in Pennsylvania, rallying as part of her outreach program in the critical battleground states. However, Harris might be facing a unique challenge in winning Pennsylvania.
As Democrats battle for control of the state’s electoral votes with Harris at the helm, their chances of winning are considerably more complex than before. Previous PA Politics columns mentioned the lack of new voters coming to the Democrat ticket, but Harris also faces a degree of cultural dissonance. Joe Biden’s local ties and cultural roots to northeastern Pennsylvania aided his victory in 2020, and Harris simply does not have the same “Scranton Joe” persona to leverage.
Harris’ challenge is also defined by the lack of a common faith that President Biden shares with Pennsylvania, a state with a sizable concentration of Roman Catholics. Biden isAmerica’s second Catholic president, following John F. Kennedy, and this likely contributed to his 2020 election. Additionally, Harris attacked a judicial nominee as senator in 2018 for his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization with strong ties to northeastern Pennsylvania. Instances such as this are fuel for campaigns in swing states, and in early September the Trump campaign launched “Catholics for Trump.”
“We don’t have the Catholic connection with Harris. We don’t have the local connection with Harris,” said Phil Condron, a Scranton advertising executive who describes himself as a ‘Joe Biden Democrat.’ “There’s really no reason to believe that she can approach the numbers that Biden was able to get when he ran last time.”
Democrats don’t concede that she faces any unique regional challenges in campaigning in Pennsylvania, but this November will mark the first time in nearly two decades that a Democratic candidate does not hold any Pennsylvanian connection. Aside from Biden, Hillary Clinton leveraged a connection in 2016, as her father was born, raised and buried in Scranton.
“My strong sense is that Kamala will not do as well as Biden did,” said Jim Bognet, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020 and 2022. “Biden made ‘Joe from Scranton’ the most prominent element of his political branding over the years. And I would say that Kamala Harris’s political branding is very different than Joe Biden’s.”
