# Does surviving an assassination attempt increase your chance of getting elected?

> BUTLER, Pennsylvania, July 14 (Reuters) - Donald Trump was shot in the ear in an attempted assassination during a campaign rally on Saturday, an attack that will likely reshape this year’s presidential race while raising sharp questions about security provided to the Republican candidate. In the moments after the shooting, Trump was swarmed and covered up by his security agents. He quickly emerged, his face streaked with blood, and pumped his fist in the air, mouthing the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-shooting-raises-questions-about-security-lapses-2024-07-14/

Does surviving an assassination attempt increase your chance of getting elected? There was a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I read many comment saying that his victory is now sealed, I was wondering if there's any evidence that shows that voters are more likely to vote for a candidate if an assassination attempt was made against that person.

There's little evidence. It probably isn't relevant to look at countries with very different political traditions from the USA, or to events a long time in the past. The closest analogue would be the Reagan shooting in March of 1981. This didn't have any particular effect on Presidential approval. Reagan's approval ratings had been rising following his election (as is normal) and peaked around that time. There was no obvious surge in approval as a result of the shooting.

There is a "rally round the flag" effect when the country is seen to be under threat (as was seen most clearly following the September 11th attacks), but few would consider that the country is under attack.

And in the political landscape of 2024, many people have very clearly formed opinions of the candidates, and there is very little movement in opinion polls. So there is little evidence that this will make a Trump victory a shoo-in, nor that this will hurt his campaign.

While we don't have enough examples to form a statistical analysis, this event was very similar to what happened to Bolsonaro in Brazil, so it is likely that things will unfold in a similar way, although there are some notable differences:

  * The candidate started being seen as a martyr figure, someone who God protected from harm. It bolstered his narrative of fighting the corrupt establishment since he can now claim he is putting his life on the line.
  * In the case of Bolsonaro, since he was gravely wounded, he was not able to participate in debates after the incident, something that was seen as an advantage since those debates had a bad reputation. This will not likely be the case for Trump.
  * He was a candidate who was constantly attacked by the mainstream media, who immediately got blamed as inciting his assassination. After the event, the media significantly toned down criticisms towards him, which helped him a lot.
  * In his case, the police reached the conclusion that the stabber acted alone, which did not directly implicate his opponents. However, his most adamant supporters still run the narrative that it was a paid killer.
  * A lot of rhetoric was made around the incident being staged, especially among his most adamant detractors, but this narrative was harshly rejected by the mainstream. This created ammunition for his base to claim that his opponent supporters were conspiracy theorists.
  * He ended up winning the election after the incident. The stabbing was completely forgotten as a talking point during his reelection which he ended up losing.



https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atentado_contra_Jair_Bolsonaro

There's nothing in particular to suggested a failed assassination attempt helps a candidate.

Ronald Reagan survived being shot in 1981, but he was fresh off his landslide victory in 1980, and it doesn't seem to have changed much opinion about him at the time.

A good example of it not increasing the chances of election would be Gerald Ford, who survived two attempts (one, two) on his life in 1975. He would lose the 1976 election a little over a year later.

That's most likely pure speculation.

Within the U.S. that phenomenon is pretty rare:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-leaders-who-were-killed-or-survived-assassination-attempts-2024-07-14/

Globally it's a little less rare, but still pretty rare in general and even more rare for a particular country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_and_government_who_survived_assassination_attempts

Also given that this list involves lots of different countries with very diverse political situation, the comparability is pretty hard. Of course you could take Putin as example and argue that at least 9 people tried to kill him and that he always won his "election", but ... yeah not sure that counts.

What might become relevant with regards to assassination attempts is polarization. Like if you'd had previously not taken notice of a candidate and their policies and suddenly someone tried to kill them, you might be more likely to give a closer look to their proposals and platforms, if someone deemed it worthy to silence them. It also might give one's own base a boost in acknowledging that it's serious and important.

That all being said polarization is a double edged sword and by rallying up your own base you usually also rally up the opposition. And in particular Trump has afaik been a politically polarizing person from day one, so there's a good chance he's not attracting any neural people to his platform (as there probably aren't many) or that the people that he attracts to it would change their opinions about him because of that. Like there is a saturation limit to that kind of positive outcome of polarization.

Also Trump isn't known for championing a particular set of policies, afaik he never even defined what "Make America Great Again" means in the first place. So if he would have been shot dead and a potential VP would have taken up the torch it would have been questionable what that person would even stand for in the first place. So it's not like "You can kill the messenger but you can't kill the message".

And the other element with regards to negative polarization is the rather obvious fact that someone tried to kill you...

Yeah polarizing also means you're making a lot of enemies. And if they deem murder an acceptable means to an end, that's pretty fucked up already. And from what we know about the suspected perpetrator it's not even that he could spin that into "our enemies trying to kill us" (he'll most likely attempt to do it anyway). But that person apparently was a nobody, not politically active, who donated to a progressive cause, but was a registered republican. So that could just as well be a symptom of his own base being disappointed and eroding.

Also it could make the campaigns even more polarizing and nasty. Not in the sense that they would reach more people, but in the sense of more political violence. In a "the gloves are off"-style. Usually the other side condemns that strongly and tries to deescalate the situation and afaik the Biden administration is doing so, though I'm not sure Trump will be doing that as well.

And might as well hurt him, as people who might have still argued "he's talks a lot of trash but he's not ended the world yet, so...", might not like an uptick in political aggression.

Normal person has empathy towards person that is a target of assassination, so this indeed will increase your chances, if you keep running after the incident. It may be high, it may be low and that is hard to estimate, but there is no doubt effect will be positive.

There are more things that help you in this particular situation:

  * This may make pulling Biden out of race pretty tricky, pressure was mounting and he would most likely not survive that, now it seems that chances are he will keep running for the office.

  * Trump's conduct during shooting - always hearing what kind of sissy/coward Donald Trump is, that is pretty common, even though I favor him in place of any Democrat candidate, I was absolutely playing this situation in my head before it happened years ago, and it was exact opposite of what happened so I was very wrong, the guy gets shoot at, wounded, and he is pretty much unshaken, he doesn't even know if danger is still present, yet he stands up and shows pretty solid bravery, this certainly will help him a lot, yes he could calculate this will help him, but if he had no courage that many opponents claim, he would not be able to do it physically anyway

  * The Photo - that photo is instant classic, it is right bellow Armstrong on the Moon, Flag on Iwo Jima, and 911 Firefighters, that alone is an election winning piece, if candidates are matched evenly I doubt this match is even, I don't really se how Biden could win at this point




While this is all a matter for speculation, especially with months to go, the betting odds have moved in Trump's favor since.

> On Saturday, _prior_ to the assassination attempt, Trump's odds of winning the 2024 presidential election were 8/15 _(65.2 percent)_ according to William Hill, a U.K. based betting company. However, _after_ the shooting, this was slashed to a 4/11 _(73.3 percent)_ chance of Trump achieving victory.)

Reuters

> An assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday of Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, appeared to improve his chances for election. A Trump presidency would presumably result in a more hawkish trade policy, an extension of tax cuts and deregulation in a host of areas ranging from climate change to cryptocurrencies. Online betting site PredictIt showed _bets of an election win at 67 cents for Trump, up from Friday's 60 cents_ , with a victory for Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden at 26 cents.

Yahoo Finance

> "Yes" shares in Polymarket's contract on whether Trump will win the presidency _climbed ten cents after the incident, to 70 cents_ , meaning the market now sees a 70% chance he will prevail in November. Each share pays out $1 if the prediction comes true, and zero if not. Bets are programmed into a smart contract on the Polygon blockchain and settled in USDC, a stablecoin, or cryptocurrency that trades 1:1 for dollars.

Also, like him or not, Trump's conduct right after the shooting, and the images thereof, "look good". If you were already very decided about Trump - either way - this won't move the needle. If you were undecided, yes, there is a real risk for sympathy votes a la Bolsonaro round #1 from the optics of both his conduct and a renewed opportunity for the Reps to talk up the "radical left".

There is certainly some debate whether betting markets exemplify the "wisdom of crowds" in politics and have some particular insights others don't. But they all seem to be moving in a clear direction as a result of the shooting event.