PA Political Digest -- Gunshots again upend presidential race, PA Supremes uphold...the law & and it's 4 votes in NEPA
Sharp analysis of PA politics and campaigns writ large
Welcome to our Tuesday Mid-Week post here at PPD — I’m your guide, GOP political consultant Christopher Nicholas.
For you today, we have:
Donald Trump survives another assassination attempt, this one at his own golf course
Our Look Ahead at the state’s 6 media markets concludes by examining the state’s largest
Did you know that PA leads with the most combined campaign visits from the presidential candidates
In Extras, at the bottom, the PA Supreme Court makes another ruling in the long-simmering battle over ‘deficient’ mail in ballots that takes us back to the starting line, and the final margin in the final contested primary race is…4.
Indifference ‘24
The presidential race was again upended by another assassination attempt on the former president, this one at his own golf club in W. Palm Beach, FL on Sunday. He was playing on the course when an advance team of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) spotted a rifle sticking through the shrubs aimed in Trump’s general direction. USSS agent(s) opened fire and disrupted the gunman’s plans. (no paywall) He did not fire his weapon and apparently never had the former president in his sights.
The local police (County Sheriff’s Department there) captured him later that day in a neighboring county after a brief manhunt. Amazingly, no one was injured during the entire melee.
And ironically, the Trump International Golf Course sits adjacent to the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Complex.
The first attempt on Trump’s life took place just around two months ago, July 13, at the Butler County, PA fairgrounds. Authorities there killed the shooter moments after he opened fire. The suspect in this incident is in custody and sports an active social media presence, which all may shed more light on his apparent motives.
Police announced yesterday that the suspect had been lurking near the golf course since about 2 am that morning (Sunday).
In 1975, Pres. Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts in just 17 days. The first took place in Sacramento while the second occurred in San Francisco. Both would-be assassins were women. The first was a member of the Manson Family cult, who served 34 years in prison and was released in 2009, a couple years after Ford died. The shooter in the second attempt was sentenced to life in prison and was released on parole after 31 years behind bars.
Politically, the first assassination attempt came just days before the GOP Convention in Milwaukee. The Convention was widely seen as a successful event. Not long after that Joe Biden called it quits and left the race. So it will be harder to gauge any political fallout from this latest attempt, as comparisons to the fallout from the first one will be more difficult to make.
We were due to start seeing the first set of public polls here taken entirely after last Tuesday’s debate. We’ll need to note if any of them were still in the field as news broke of the events in Florida. Most national polls over the weekend showed a small, but noticeable shift toward Kamala Harris.
Look Ahead
We end our review of the state’s 6 media markets today by focusing on the largest: Philadelphia.
This market is home to nearly 42% of PA’s voters and I’ve always divided it into 3 subsets: Philadelphia, the 4 suburban counties, and the 3 exurban counties (Berks,