“It’s been just two weeks since a shooter tried to assassinate the former president and the Republican Party rallied around its candidate at the convention in Milwaukee in the days after. In a normal election, Donald Trump would still be gobbling up the political oxygen,” Politico reports.
“But when the former president and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, took the stage for a rally Saturday night in St. Cloud, Minnesota, they were facing a vastly different race from the one they were running in just a week ago. President Joe Biden’s exit and the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ likely nominee has rocked the 2024 election and stolen the news cycle, blunting the momentum Trump could have seen over the last two weeks. Instead, the polling advantage he was building over Biden has mostly dissipated now that he’s running against Harris.”
“And now, Trump is forced to pivot to a new opponent just 100 days from the election. He again used Saturday to test out a slew of attack lines, hitting Harris on everything from the border to inflation to abortion and crime — even taking a swipe at her laugh.”