Philippa Kaur

In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box … not with bullets. The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin.

So said the US president, Joe Biden, in an Oval Office address to the nation the day after the attempted assassination of his rival in November’s presidential election.

US president, Joe Biden, calls on America to ‘lower the temperature’ in US politics.

The shockwaves of Trump surviving an effort to kill him at a campaign event in Pennsylvania on July 13 are still being felt across the United States and around the world. The FBI stated it has picked up on increasing levels of violent political rhetoric being expressed in the aftermath of the assassination attempt.

And, contrary to Biden’s insistence that there is “no place in America for this kind of violence”, Katie Stallard, a non-resident global fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington DC, believes that: “The attack on Donald Trump was shocking, but it wasn’t unprecedented by American standards, and it wasn’t entirely unforeseeable.”

The Trump assassination attempt follows a disturbing trend in America of extremists embarking on violent plots to silence their perceived opponents.

Researchers Professor Pete Simi of Chapman University, and Seamus Hughes, University of Nebraska, have examined threats against political candidates between 2013 and 2023. They found that “over the past 10 years, more than 500 individuals have been arrested for threatening public officials. And the trendline is shooting up.”

Over the past three years alone, America has witnessed a surge in violence linked to a darkening political landscape that has seen combative and toxic discourse infect its body politic.

The Capitol riots in January 2021 were preceded by a speech from the then president, Donald Trump, where he told an assembled crowd the November 2020 presidential election had been “stolen”. Following this address thousands of the president’s supporters marched on the Capitol building.

The ensuing mayhem resulted in a violent riot and the deaths of five people, including a police officer.

In October 2022, Paul Pelosi, the husband of the then House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in his home and bludgeoned with a hammer by far-right conspiracy theorist David DePape. DePape’s plan was to find Pelosi herself, hold her hostage, and “break her kneecaps”. Donald Trump would later mock Mr Pelosi at a Republican campaign event.

Donald Trump mocks Paul Pelosi after the House speaker’s husband was assaulted.

In September 2023, Trump sparked fury with a social media post criticising former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley. On “Truth Social” the former president, angered by revelations that Milley had taken a phone call with Chinese officials after the January 6 2021 riots, wrote: “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Guns and angry folks

Polling conducted by Professor Robert A. Pape from the University of Chicago, sheds new light on the worrying positions some Americans have towards the utility of political violence. This survey of over 2,000 people found that 10% of respondents viewed the use of force as “justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president”. This equates to 26 million adults if the findings are applied to the whole population.

Within this mix of increasingly dangerous political rhetoric and violence is America’s “guns epidemic”. According to the FBI, the weapon used by the would-be assassin at the Trump campaign rally, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was an AR-style rifle purchased by his father.

Pape’s survey also found that 7% of respondents supported the use of force “to restore Donald Trump to the presidency”. Of this group, which equates to 18 million adults, around 45% own guns, 40% think the people involved in the Capitol attack were “patriots”, while 10% were either militia members or knew someone who was a militia member.

White Nationalists march at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, 2017.

The reaction to the Trump assassination attempt by some of his most prominent congressional supporters has bordered on the reckless. Ohio Senator J.D. Vance – a potential vice presidential nominee – stated that Joe Biden bore responsibility for the attack. He asserted that the president’s campaign speeches had “led directly” to what transpired in Pennsylvania.

Other GOP elected officials have gone further with wild and dangerous rhetoric. Georgia congressman Mike Collins posted on X that “Joe Biden sent the orders” and called for the Republican district attorney in Butler County, where the assassination attempt took place, to “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination”.

There is heightened concern as the summer of political conventions by both Republican and Democratic parties get underway. Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has stated that these large gatherings “boast the largest collections of party members and leaders throughout the entire election cycle and could therefore attract individuals or groups with a vendetta”.

Read more:
Trump tones down his rhetoric as he prepares for ‘coronation’ at Republican National Convention

Many across the United States, and beyond its shores, will hope the Trump assassination attempt will lead to tempered introspection and reasoned political debate. But others justifiably fear the event could serve as a catalyst for deeper polarisation and further acts of violence. More

At a political rally in Pennsylvania, former president Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt. As gunshots rang out during the Republican candidate’s rally, Trump miraculously avoided a direct hit and said a bullet grazed his ear.

One person attending the rally was killed.

During the rapid sequence of events witnessed in the attack, Trump raised his right hand toward his head while his body moved towards the ground. Secret Service agents quickly rushed in, getting on top of Trump, forming a protective cone around him.

Members of the U.S. Secret Service surround Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump after shots were fired during his campaign event on July 13.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

After being down for about a minute, Trump rose and pumped his fist while his protective detail shielded him. The 78-year-old appeared to have been injured, with blood dripping from his ear. A 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania has been identified as the shooter. He was killed by Secret Service snipers who were watching over the rally.

This act of violence is an extremely disturbing turn of events in political affairs in the United States. However, it is not without precedent.

Read more:
Attempted assassination of Trump: The long history of violence against U.S. presidents

Reviewing event security

Of urgent importance, a U.S. Secret Service protective review will begin immediately to determine if there were any points of failure in the site security plan at the fairground at Butler, Pa. The results of that review will be immediately applied to current protection activities for all presidential candidates.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will lead the investigation into the shooting. Agents from the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office will be joined by multidisciplinary teams, including the critical incident response group and evidence response technicians.

The FBI will need to answer big-picture questions quickly. Was the shooter a lone wolf? Did this assassination attempt result from politically motivated domestic terrorism?

Video footage of the immediate aftermath of the Trump shooting on July 13.

Security implications

Given this act of political violence has occurred immediately before the Republican National Convention (RNC) taking place in Milwaukee, there will be wide-ranging security implications for that gathering. It should be noted that the security preparation for the political convention was already at enhanced levels prior to the Trump assassination attempt.

In fact, a pre-emptive state of emergency had already been declared in May for the Milwaukee event.

The RNC has been designated a National Special Security Event. That designation allows for better co-ordination between multiple local, state and federal agencies to protect complex events from threats and to facilitate additional resource deployments to handle any type of civil emergency that may occur during the political gathering.

Historical precedents

Assassination attempts on candidates have happened during the 1968 and 1972 American presidential races. These incidents altered presidential election cycles of the past.

On June 5, 1968, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was killed following a rally in California. Kennedy had just won the California primary and was fatally wounded by Sirhan Sirhan after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy delivers remarks to a crowd in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, on June 5, 1968, moments before his assassination.
(Sven Walnum, The Sven Walnum Photograph Collection/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

The dynamics of the 1968 presidential election were altered when the American voter’s choices of candidates were dictated in part by the outcome of political violence.

On May 5, 1972, George Wallace was campaigning to become the Democratic nominee for president. After a rally in Laurel, Md., Wallace was shot while shaking hands with attendees. He was a divisive politician who was an ardent segregationist and used tactics of stirring up fears for so-called forgotten white Americans. He survived the assassination attempt but was paralyzed for life.

After the shooting, Wallace reconsidered some of his controversial views.

Dark shadow of political violence

Have we entered an era of political upheaval in America where political violence will become the backdrop for U.S. politics?

Recent studies on attitudes toward political violence indicate that a small but not insignificant number of Americans support the idea of using violence to advance political ideas.

While Trump is the victim of this heinous attack, it’s difficult to ignore how he has catalyzed extreme political polarization. Trump has repeatedly acted to demonize his opponents and he tacitly supported political violence during the insurrection on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.

Read more:
Pro-Trump rioters storm U.S. Capitol as his election tantrum leads to violence

Nonetheless, it’s unacceptable to consider that violence can be normalized as an expression of American political views. There is a clear and present danger that the outcome of political violence will be a determining factor for the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. Hopefully, the assassination attempt on Trump will not put undue influence on the American electorate. More

Political assassinations in the United States have a long and disturbing history.

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, who narrowly escaped death when a bullet grazed his right ear while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, highlights the danger of those seeking votes in a country whose constitution guarantees citizens the right to bear arms.

Trump joins a not-so-exclusive club of U.S. presidents, former presidents and presidential candidates who have been the target of bullets. Of the 45 people who have served as president, four have been assassinated while in office.

Given the near mythic status of U.S. presidents, and the nation’s superpower role, political assassinations strike at the very heart of the American psyche.

In this Nov. 22, 1963 photo, President John F. Kennedy rides in a motorcade with his wife Jacqueline moments before he was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.
(AP Photo, File)

A life-size painting of President Abraham Lincoln, the first U.S. president to be killed by an assassin’s bullet.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Abraham Lincoln’s killing in 1865 and that of John F. Kennedy in 1963 are key moments in the history of the United States. James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901) are less remembered, but their deaths nonetheless rocked the nation at the time.

It was after McKinley’s assassination that the U.S. Secret Service was given the job of providing full-time protection to presidents.

The last American president to be shot was Ronald Reagan, who was seriously wounded and required emergency surgery in 1981.

Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after giving a speech when gunman John Hinckley Jr. fired shots from a .22-calibre pistol. One of the bullets ricocheted off the president’s limousine and hit him under the left armpit. Reagan spent 12 days in hospital before returning to the White House.

In this March 30, 1981 photo, President Ronald Reagan, center, is shown being shoved into the President’s limousine by secret service agents after being shot outside a Washington hotel.
(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

Other presidents have been shot at, but luckily, not injured.

In 1933, a gunman fired five shots at the car of then President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt wasn’t hit but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was speaking to Roosevelt after the newly elected president had made some brief remarks to the public, was injured and died 19 days later.

In September of 1975, President Gerald Ford survived two separate assassination attempts — both by women. The first came on Sept. 5 when Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, tried to shoot Ford as he was walking through a park in Sacramento, Calif., but her gun misfired and didn’t go off. On Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore, a woman with ties to left-wing radical groups, got one shot off at Ford as he left a hotel in San Francisco but it missed the president.

Presidential candidates have not been exempt from assassination attempts, including most notably Senator Robert F. Kennedy killed in 1968 and George Wallace shot and left paralyzed in 1972.

In 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt was hit in the chest by a .38-calibre bullet as he was campaigning to regain the White House. But most of the impact of the bullet was absorbed by objects in the chest pocket of Roosevelt’s jacket. Even though he had been shot, Roosevelt went on to make a campaign speech with the bullet still in his chest.

Other figures with significant — if unelected — political power have also had their lives cut short by gunfire, most notably Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, just a few months before Bobby Kennedy’s death.

In a country with more guns than people, and with firearms easily available, it is not surprising that invariably shootings are the preferred means of killing or attempting to kill political office holders.

Like Trump, most assassination attempts occur when candidates and politicians are in public spaces with crowds of people nearby. There is a long history of politicians insisting, against the advice of their security advisers, to “press the flesh” in events that jeopardize their safety. Trump was extraordinarily fortunate to escape with only minor injuries.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) More

Given the Democratic Party’s belief that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, it’s not surprising some are questioning why a faltering U.S President Joe Biden is still their nominee when the stakes are so high.

It is startling to watch clips of Biden debating Trump in 2020.

He’d already lost some steam compared to earlier debate performances during his 50-year political career, but he was still a formidable verbal jouster. But the American president’s recent CNN debate with Trump was not just a bad performance, it appears to provide the smoking-gun proof his advisers have reportedly tried to hide from the public: He is no longer up for one of the most demanding jobs in the world.

Aging at different rates

Not everyone ages at the same rate — compare Biden to Sen. Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, former Democratic House of Representatives speaker. Both are older than him yet remain sharp.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at a recent church service in Philadelphia.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce)

There’s also no doubt elderly people who struggle to find their words and memories still have a tremendous amount to give and should be honoured for their accumulated wisdom. But maybe they shouldn’t hold down a grinding job that appears to quicken the aging process even for those much younger than Biden.

The stakes are existential as Trump promises to accelerate fossil fuel production in the middle of a climate emergency while solidifying the Supreme Court majority that has stripped away federal abortion rights and the government’s capacity to regulate corporate malfeasance.

When Biden ran against Trump successfully in 2020, the selling point he made to those already concerned about his age was that he would be a bridge to the future, perhaps only serving one term. So why is Biden still clinging to power, even after broadcasting his frailty to the 50 million people who tuned in to the first debate?

‘Earthly heroism’

There isn’t a singular answer, of course. But Biden’s ego — and his unwillingness to walk away from the power that likely compensates for his own fears about inevitable decline — is undoubtedly a powerful factor.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death, anthropologist Ernest Becker argued that we unconsciously cope with our existential fears by pursuing “earthly heroism.” We seek social recognition that offers hits of the power and control that the natural world appears to deny us by writing death into all our life contracts.

None of this is rational. But death can be terrifying, so it makes sense that we become irrational in the face of impermanence.

There is a growing body of psychological research — known as terror management theory — that offers robust experimental evidence for the link between fear of death and compensatory fantasies of supremacy that can wreak havoc both personally and politically.

Biden seems to be denying his own aging process and is seemingly clinging to power to compensate for his growing fragility, but this stubbornness could imperil our collective future. As Becker impressed upon his audiences, existential fear plays a far greater role in our individual and political lives than we’d generally like to admit.

Donald Trump-branded shoes sit on display for sale at the North Carolina GOP convention in Greensboro, N.C., in May 2024.
(AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Even in this era of polarization, death denial is bipartisan. Trump is a walking embodiment of Becker’s theories. The man is obsessed with pasting his name on everything from buildings, sneakers and steaks, seeking social power — or what Becker called “symbolic immortality” — to compensate for his unconscious anxieties.

Trump is an admitted germaphobe who is obsessed with notions of impurity and physical weakness, including hair loss, which he associates with diminished strength and vitality.

Of course, existential anxieties are not the only factors driving Trump’s hunger for supremacy and Biden’s unwillingness to pass the torch as he holds onto power. But they are major components, and they don’t get the media coverage they deserve in our largely death-denying culture.

Donald Trump waves to supporters as he walks on the driving range ahead of the final round of LIV Golf Miami at Trump National Doral Golf Club in April 2024, in Doral, Fla.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

The dangers of death denial

In my new book Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital, I demonstrate how denying death only tends to bring forth more death and destruction.

In the case of Biden, his denial is bringing the world dangerously close to another Republican presidency rife with Trump’s many denials and resentments.

Biden’s debate bomb was a poignant moment as his denial and that of his team ran headfirst into reality. His campaign is closing ranks around him, asking voters to choose denial, when a path remains open to replace him.

There is so much complexity to political outcomes, and yet the recent debate clarifies how raw compensatory ego, rooted in death denial, remains an underappreciated force in politics.

Healthy and flourishing societies hinge on forging cultures that are more open to the reality of death so that they’re less subject to compensatory bids for power and supremacy. If Biden and his team accepted his own impermanence and generously passed the torch to the next generation, it would be a step in the right direction. More

President Joe Biden is strongly reaffirming his commitment to stay in the presidential race – despite a growing number of calls from politicians and voters for him to step down, following a highly criticized debate performance in June 2024.

After Biden said in an ABC news interview that only “the Lord Almighty” could convince him to drop out, he wrote a letter on July 8 to congressional Democrats declaring that “I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.”

This comes as additional prominent Democratic politicians are reportedly – and mostly privately – calling for Biden to exit the race.

Biden has been consistent in saying he’s staying in the race, but that doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. The Conversation’s Politics and Society Editor Amy Lieberman spoke with Philip Klinkner, a scholar of American politics and the presidency at Hamilton College, to better understand what factors might influence what Biden says and his ultimate decision to stay in the race or not.

President Joe Biden speaks with ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos on July 5, 2024, in Madison, Wis.
ABC via Getty Images

Can we take Biden’s words about staying in the race at face value? Do they reflect what’s happening behind the scenes?

Biden obviously knows that his support among Democrats – mostly elected Democrats in Congress, governors and others – is slipping. He knows that if he shows signs of indecision, that could lead to less support from Democrat politicians, which would cause even more waffling. He is trying to present a brave front as a way to kind of stem any defections, doubts and bleeding. So far, that hasn’t really had the intended effect.

Each day we see a trickle of Democrats in Congress who have called for Biden to step aside. Biden’s approach may have kept this trickle from becoming a deluge, but it could become a deluge at any time.

What factors are these politicians considering as they decide whether to back Biden or not?

There is a range of considerations. One argument is that Biden is obviously flawed, but is there anyone out there who would be a better nominee against Trump? Another factor is that Biden has been a Washington, D.C. fixture for decades. Many of these people are friends with him and have worked with him. They don’t necessarily want to be the friend who turns on him in the end.

The other factor is that if Biden is not going anywhere, these politicians don’t want to be the one who calls for him to leave. Then, Biden and the folks who work around him could later say, “You abandoned me when I needed you most.”

Have we seen politicians previously who emphatically committed to staying in a race before they abruptly changed their minds?

Politicians are always fully committed to some course of action until they are not, and they often express this in the most absolute terms.

In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton as his vice president running mate. News then came out that Eagleton had been treated for depression and had electroconvulsive therapy. At the time, attitudes toward mental illness were not as accepting as they are today, and McGovern and Eagleton faced a lot of criticism. McGovern first said he was behind Eagleton “1,000%,” and then a few days later he cut him loose and dropped him from the ticket.

Until a day or two before Richard Nixon resigned as president in August 1974, he said he would never do it. For more than a year, people were calling on Nixon to resign following the Watergate scandal, in which Nixon operatives were caught trying to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters. These calls amplified after the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973, when he fired a special prosecutor and accepted the resignations of the two top officials in the Department of Justice – the attorney general and deputy attorney general – who were involved with investigating Watergate.

Richard Nixon gives a farewell speech to his staff and cabinet at the White House on Aug. 9, 1974, after he resigned as president.
Bettmann/Contributor

What was the critical moment in these two cases?

In Nixon’s case – and as Biden could be be facing now – the support of his own party collapsed. Top congressional Republicans went to the White House and said, “Look, you will be impeached if you don’t step down.” Nixon famously asked Senator Barry Goldwater about what his support in the Senate looked like. Goldwater said, “There’s not more than 15 senators for you.”

With Eagleton and McGovern, the lack of support from within their party was also a key factor that led to the switch in vice presidential candidate.

In Biden’s case, I think that having senior Democrats like Congressman Jerry Nadler saying, even in private calls, that he should step down will lead to him quitting the race. Biden can only handle so much of that because the more that goes on, the more it gives room and safety for other Democrats to come out.

Is there more going on behind the scenes that’s convinced Biden and his allies that he should stay in the race?

There has been some exaggeration in how bad Biden’s poll numbers actually are. Yes, Biden has dipped in the polls, but it has not been a free fall and it is still a very close race. Historically, what we tend to see is that if a politician takes a hit in the polls because of a particular incident, it tends to be pretty short-lived. What the Biden people are likely thinking is, ‘Yes, we took a hit in the polls after the debate, but if you give it two weeks, the race will return to where it was before the debate.’

When Trump got convicted on 34 felony counts in May 2024, that just barely moved the poll numbers. People may not be happy with the choice of Trump versus Biden, but most people know who they are going to pick in that circumstance.

Most people running for office are pretty immune to attacks from the other party. What hurts the most is when people in your own party start to criticize you.

That is what is happening here with Biden. The Biden people are saying that if everyone just got on board, we would not see any dip in the polls. More

The US vice president, Kamala Harris, rushed to the defence of Joe Biden after his calamitous debate performance against Donald Trump in late June. In an interview with CNN, she said: “There are three things that were true yesterday before the debate that are still true today … First, the stakes of this race could not be higher. Second, the contrast in this election could not be more stark. And third, we believe in our president Joe Biden, and we believe in what he stands for.”

But one in three Democrats now believe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race. And, in spite of her declaration of support, Harris is emerging as the frontrunner to replace the 81-year-old should he step aside.

A CNN poll published last week shows Harris within “striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup” – 47% of registered voters support Trump compared with 45% for Harris. The vice president’s numbers centre on her broader appeal to women and independents.

As well as having been vetted for national office, and intensely scrutinised by the media and the Republican party, there is a degree of momentum building for Harris to replace Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. There is also notable congressional backing.

Jim Clyburn, a prominent African-American congressman from South Carolina whose endorsement of Biden was critical to his nomination in 2020, told MSNBC on July 2 that he would support Harris to be the Democratic nominee should Biden quit the race.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the Truman Balcony of the White House on July 4 2024.
Tierney L. Cross / Pool / EPA

Born in Oakland, California, on October 20 1964, Harris began her career as an assistant district attorney focusing on sex crimes. She was later recruited to the San Francisco prosecutor’s office, where she focused on tackling teenage prostitution.

After becoming the district attorney for San Francisco, Harris caused controversy by refusing to pursue the death penalty against the murderer of a city police officer in 2004. Despite the political difficulties this caused her, Harris oversaw an increased conviction rate in San Francisco between 2004 and 2007, from 52% to 67%. And in November 2010, she was elected attorney general for California.

A key criminal justice initiative implemented by Harris during this period was the “Open Justice” project. This online platform gave the public open access to criminal justice data as well as collating information on incidents involving individuals held in police custody. She also pursued investigations of police misconduct and opened civil rights investigations into two California police departments.

Harris was elected to the US Senate in November 2016. A little over two years later she announced her bid for the Democratic nomination for president. However, she suspended her campaign in December 2019 citing a lack of financial resources, and was named as Biden’s vice presidential nominee the following year.

Making history

The Biden-Harris victory in the 2020 presidential election was historic. This was the first time a woman had been elected to the second-most powerful position in the nation, let alone a woman of colour.

According to Camille Busette, the interim vice president and director of governance studies at the influential Brookings think tank, Harris’ identity as a black and Asian woman – and all that it has signified about the hopes of ending systemic racism in America – was a “real factor in [the 2020] election”. Busette pointed to exit polls that showed “72% of non-white voters backed Biden and Harris, and 20% of voters listed racial inequality as the most important issue motivating their vote”.

As vice president, Kamala Harris has served the Biden administration as a useful conduit for connecting with key Democratic groups that Biden struggles to reach. In March 2024, she spoke at an event in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 59th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” – where state troopers attacked demonstrators in what became a seismic moment in America’s civil rights movement.

Harris used her speech to acknowledge the continuing anger felt by many in the US, especially its youth, at the worsening situation in Gaza. She called on Israel to do more for Gazans “dying of malnutrition and dehydration”. She also demanded that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government not “impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid”.

Harris, who earlier in the year took on a more focused role in being the administration’s emissary to young American voters, is making a concerted effort to communicate to this key demographic with empathetic statements on the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

She has also assumed a more active role advocating for reproductive rights in America. In early 2024, for instance, Harris embarked on a national tour to highlight the threats posed to these entitlements by a second Trump presidency.

The decision by the US Supreme Court in 2022 to strike down Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed womens’ right to abortion, has ensured the issue will become central to the 2024 presidential campaign and a potential wedge issue for Democrats. As Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings, writes: “analysts have underestimated the size of the pro-choice vote. In hindsight, there’s no question that it was instrumental in blocking the expected red wave in the 2022 midterms.”

Pro-choice protesters gathered outside the US Supreme Court in Washington DC to protest the overturning of Roe v Wade in June 2022.
Eli Wilson/Shutterstock

A major advantage Harris would have over any other potential Democratic rival for the party’s presidential nomination is her access to a US$300 million (£234 million) cash-in-hand campaign war chest. Since the Biden-Harris campaign account was registered with the Federal Election Commission in both of their names, the vice president would be able to use these funds.

There was a sense of excitement at the historic ramifications of Biden’s decision in 2020 to select Harris as his running mate. As Kamarck observed at the time: “What Biden knows is that the job of president is too big for any one person; in the White House, as in life, a trusted partner is a great asset.”

The question many are asking now is: if Biden determines the job of president is too much for him, will his “trusted partner” take on the mantle? More

Twenty years before Watergate, then-Sen. Richard Nixon’s national political ambitions were in peril. He was accused of dipping into a private, $18,000 slush fund to cover expenses, and doubts about the propriety of his conduct intensified as the 1952 presidential election campaign unfolded.

Nixon was able to preserve what became a long career in national politics – and kept the vice presidential spot on that year’s Republican national ticket – with a talk on television and radio in which Checkers, his family’s cocker spaniel, figured memorably.

What is known as Nixon’s “Checkers” speech was without precedent, and it came at a moment when television was just beginning to have an impact on American political life.

Although popular memory of the speech has faded, the episode offers a reminder, perhaps loosely relevant these days to President Joe Biden, about how political firestorms – and demands that a controversial candidate quit a national party ticket – can in some circumstances be neutralized.

The “Checkers” case is also a reminder that a whiff of scandal isn’t necessarily destructive to a political campaign.

Then-vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon relaxes at home in Washington with his cocker spaniel, Checkers.
Bettmann/Contributor

Nixon at a crossroads

The 1952 Republican ticket, led by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, won a 39-state landslide over the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois. The sweep of the Eisenhower-Nixon victory was an outcome no pollster had anticipated, as I note in my 2024 book, “Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections.”

But a Republican victory hardly seemed assured in mid-September 1952, when the New York Post reported that Nixon, then 39, had benefited from a private fund set up by supporters to cover expenses incurred as a U.S. senator from California.

The then-liberal Post said the fund was supported by a “millionaire’s club” of Californians and was “devoted exclusively to the financial comfort of Sen. Nixon.” The nest egg allowed Nixon to live in style well beyond what a senator’s salary – $12,500 annually, or about $145,000 these days – could support, the Post alleged.

Nixon was caught unawares and denied wrongdoing. He was slow to realize that the Post’s disclosure threatened his political career. Not only did it raise doubts about the senator’s judgment, the report appeared to contradict Eisenhower’s pledge to crack down on scandal, corruption and unethical conduct in Washington.

Nixon not only seemed to be “damaged goods,” as Tom Wicker wrote in his biography of Nixon. He was suddenly “a liability” to Eisenhower, a five-star general and America’s preeminent military hero of World War II.

Calls for Nixon to vacate the Republican ticket arose quickly, emanating even from within the Republican party and its Eastern establishment wing. Former New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, a two-time loser in campaigns for the U.S. presidency, urged Nixon to quit.

Nixon soon was the target of jeering audiences at campaign stops. Many reporters covering the candidate figured he would have to quit. Demands that he do so began appearing in newspapers that supported Eisenhower.

The Washington Post, for example, said Nixon’s quitting “would provide the Republican party an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of its campaign against loose conduct and corruption in government.” The New York Herald Tribune, a voice of Eastern establishment Republicanism, called for Nixon “to make a formal offer of withdrawal from the ticket.”

Eisenhower, meanwhile, was lukewarm about Nixon’s remaining on the ticket and extended little more than half-hearted support to his running mate as the controversy deepened. He called on Nixon to make full disclosure about the fund.

A turnaround with Checkers

Nixon’s response was to plead his case to Americans by radio and television from a broadcast studio in Los Angeles. His half-hour speech was paid for by the Republican National Committee and aired live on Sept. 23, 1952, five days after the New York Post’s report about the fund.

Nixon during the broadcast was by turns adamant, self-pitying and partisan. His wife, Pat, was seated nearby in an armchair that was mostly out of camera range. She looked stricken the few times the camera turned her way.

Nixon emphasized his modest background and lifestyle, mentioning that his wife did not own a mink coat, an artifact of luxury at the time. Instead, Nixon said, she wore a “respectable Republican cloth coat.”

He described in detail his possessions and liabilities, saying, “It isn’t very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we’ve got is honestly ours.”

Nixon said he had granted no “special favors” to the 76 contributors who donated as much as $1,000 to the fund, which had been set up two years before. Its singular purpose, Nixon asserted, was to help cover expenses “that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.”

The fund’s single largest expenditures were reported to be $6,100 for stationery and $3,430 for travel. “Not one cent” went for personal use, Nixon said.

Little of what Nixon described seemed to support the New York Post’s claims of a fund set up for his “financial comfort.”

Nearly 20 minutes into his remarks, Nixon invoked Checkers, a passage that helped win for the speech an enduring place in American political lore.

A Nixon supporter in Texas had gifted the pet to Nixon’s family after he heard a radio broadcast in which Pat Nixon said her daughters would like to have a dog.

Not long afterward, Nixon said during the speech, “we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

“It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate … sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers,” Nixon said.

“And you know,” he added, “the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep” Checkers.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon in January 1952 in New York.
Bettmann/Contributor

A ‘political masterstroke’

The writer George D. Gopen, in assessing the speech years later, said the reference to Checkers allowed Nixon’s daughters metaphorically to “burst onto the scene, unseen, to dominate our consciousness, playing with their dog.”

“That is great thinking and really good writing,” he wrote.

In the immediate aftermath of the speech, Robert Ruark, a syndicated columnist, wrote that Nixon had effectively “stripped himself naked for all the world to see, and he brought the missus and the kids and the dog … into the act.” Nixon had aligned himself with mainstream Americans in what Wicker described as a “political masterstroke.”

Nixon closed by inviting viewers and listeners to help decide his political fate by sending letters and telegrams not to Eisenhower but to members of the Republican National Committee. Tell them, Nixon said, “whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.”

Americans responded by the tens of thousands, expressing support for Nixon. Members of the Republican National Committee voted without objection to keep him on the ticket.

The outcome was perhaps encouraged by less-sensational disclosures at the time that Stevenson, the Democratic presidential nominee, had supported supplementary income funds for appointees to state positions in Illinois and that his running mate, Sen. John Sparkman, had kept his wife on his congressional payroll for 10 years.

The day after the speech, Eisenhower met Nixon in West Virginia and declared his running mate vindicated. “Why, you’re my boy!” the Herald Tribune quoted the general as saying.

A political disaster had been averted. Nixon served two terms as vice president in Eisenhower’s administrations and twice won the presidency before resigning in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

Nixon’s rescuing himself in the 1952 election was notable and perhaps instructive, suggesting that a creative, high-profile and timely response can prevent sensational allegations from overwhelming a beleaguered candidacy, much as they nearly did to Nixon.

The lessons of 1952, of course, are only superficially germane to Biden’s predicament in the aftermath of his recent disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. Even though the long-ago Checkers speech offers no sure road map to surviving a political crisis, it does represent intriguing context to 2024.

It is certainly noteworthy that Biden in recent days has sought out a variety of audiences, including those of a television network, in an urgent gambit to preserve his candidacy for reelection.

Although Biden rejects their findings, polls make clear Biden’s not succeeding, that a Checkers-like redux is not in the offing. More

Over the course of Nevada history, no one party has dominated the state’s politics, and its electorate has remained surprisingly balanced in its political leanings. Since becoming a state in 1864, Nevada has had equal representation with its federal delegation: 14 U.S. senators from each of the major parties and 20 U.S. House members from each of the Democratic and Republican parties.

The same parity exists at the state level. There have been 31 governors of Nevada: 15 Republicans, 12 Democrats and two each from the Silver Party – active around the turn of the 20th century – and the Silver Democrat Party. The Silver Democrats were eventually absorbed into the Democratic Party.

While the state Senate has been controlled by Republicans 48 times and Democrats 28 times, the proportional control of the state Assembly is the reverse, with Democrats controlling the chamber 50 times and Republicans in the majority 26 times.

That all adds up to an unusual status for Nevada in today’s politics: It is neither a red state nor a blue state. And that has led some to label it a battleground state for the 2024 presidential election.

However, as a longtime Nevadan and a scholar who studies political systems, I have seen Nevada become more polarized along party lines. Will this growing polarization move the state away from its historic political evenhandedness?

The economy, specifically concerns about inflation, gas prices and housing affordability, is top of mind for Nevada voters. Republicans argue that the economy is getting worse, while Democrats contend it is improving. And controversial issues likely to appear on the November 2024 ballot – abortion rights, requiring voter identification and allowing teachers to strike – have contributed to the polarizing rhetoric of local and statewide races.

Control over the Nevada Legislature has been shared – and has swung – between parties over the decades.
AP Photo/Tom R. Smedes

Balanced from the widest angle

Taking a wide view of Nevada politics, political representation from both of the major parties appears balanced. However, a closer look reveals a shifting landscape over the past couple of decades.

Culturally, Nevada has been associated with easy marriage and divorce, casino gambling, legal prostitution and a loose, anything-goes mentality – all captured by the famous slogan “What happens here, stays here.”

In reality, Nevada has also been politically conservative, even among Democrats. This cauldron of conflicting images has resulted in a political landscape that has shifted between Republican and Democratic domination at both the federal and state levels.

From Nevada’s ascension to statehood in 1864 until 1890, Republicans led the state. All federal and state representatives except for two legislators were Republican in 1864, when Nevada became the 36th state.

From 1890 to 1908, Nevada was governed by the Silver Party, which advocated for the unlimited coinage of silver, a major economic issue in the U.S. in the late 19th century. By 1902, most pro-silver factions in Nevada had been absorbed by the state Democratic Party.

From 1908 until 1930s, Republican and Democratic control were roughly equally divided, with Democrats winning more positions but Republicans securing more top-of-the-ticket victories at the presidential and gubernatorial levels.

After the election of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Democrats dominated Nevada politics until the 1980s, when Republicans reemerged; by late 1995, Republican voter registrations outnumbered Democrats in Nevada for the first time since the 1930s.

However, by 2004, the political tides had shifted back to Democrats due to strong get-out-the-vote efforts by the Democratic Party.

Nevada is a really strong union state. The Culinary Union, which represents over 60,000 Nevada hospitality workers, is particularly influential. The “Reid machine,” a loose coalition of progressive groups named after the late U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, began working in the mid 1990s, with the Culinary Union pushing to register its working class, young, Latino, Black and Asian members as voters. These efforts intensified after losses by the Democrats in 2002. Together, the union and the progressives then worked to make sure that people voted – by early voting, in-person on Election Day or by mail.

These efforts have most noticeably affected the state Legislature, where Democrats have almost always been in control of the state Assembly since 1997, save for one two-year session in 2015, and have led the state Senate since 2009, except for that 2015 session.

The Culinary Union, whose members are seen here protesting for higher wages in 2023, is Nevada’s largest union and wields significant political power.
AP Photo/John Locher

Splitting the ticket

Nevada’s federal delegation since 2019 has been dominated by Democrats, who have held three of the four U.S. House of Representatives seats and both U.S. Senate seats. However, despite the increase in Democratic registration and the efforts of the “Reid machine,” nearly all governors elected since 1998 have been Republicans. The lone exception was the election of Democrat Steve Sisolak for one four-year term in 2018.

These party differences among federal and state officeholders happen because Nevadans are well-known ticket splitters, priding themselves for voting more on the basis of issues and personalities over party loyalties or identity.

And to demonstrate Nevadans’ political independence, in 1976 the state added “None of These Candidates” as a choice for all statewide and federal offices. It is the only state in the U.S. with this option.

Nevada’s voting patterns have meant the state’s voters have fairly reliably chosen the winner in presidential elections. Of the 40 presidential elections in which Nevada has participated from 1864 to 2020, the state voted for the winning candidate 33 times. And in the 23 presidential elections since 1912, its electoral votes have gone to the winning presidential candidate in all but two elections – in 1976 and 2016.

Looking to the coming election

At the federal level, current polling has Nevadans splitting their votes in November 2024. Former President Donald Trump is ahead of Joe Biden by about 5 percentage points, while U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent, is leading her challenger, Republican Sam Brown, by over 10 percentage points.

The “Reid machine” still exists, but its power has been waning since the former senator’s death in 2021. The Culinary Union, which customarily has been aligned with Democrats, is feuding with the Nevada Democratic Party over its 2023 support for repealing a 2020 COVID-era state law that mandated frequent room cleaning. This has led to the union’s refusal to endorse a number of Democratic state representatives. While this does not mean the union will support Republicans, the dispute could reduce the union’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

In addition, nonpartisans now outnumber registered voters in both the Democratic and Republican parties in Nevada. Data from the Nevada Secretary of State’s office shows that nonpartisans comprise 33.8% of active registered voters, compared with 30.3% who are Democrats and 28.8% who are Republicans. As my research has confirmed, independents are notoriously unpredictable with their votes.

Nevada is unique in that it is one of the most working-class states in the country. Demographically, it is reasonably reflective of the country as a whole. It has high populations of Latino and Asian American people, and both parties are in competition for these voters.

The growing number of voters leaving the two major parties and identifying as independent, coupled with the expanding divide of the two major political parties and polarizing political rhetoric, may be more reflective of where the rest of the states are heading.

Nevada may remain a battleground state due to its political divide, but the rise of nonpartisan voters in the state may signal where the national electorate is heading. More