A hectic July propels Trump, GOP to new heights as Biden, Dems flounder

With four months before the presidential election, Republicans are flying high while the Democrats are in a tailspin.

It’s been a tale of two parties in July, as a surging Donald Trump keeps racking up the wins even as a wobbly President Joe Biden falters.

Capitalizing on the momentum from Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June, Trump hasn’t looked back.

The former president’s party got started July 1, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed the GOP leader a major victory by expanding presidential immunity, undermining the various criminal cases facing him.

Following that triumph, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida tossed out the classified documents case against him.

Next, while speaking at a rally in Butler County just over a week ago, Trump survived an assassin’s bullet that clipped his ear.

And after four days of the Republican National Convention wrapped up Thursday in Milwaukee, there was no doubt about Trump’s iron grip on the party, as former adversaries such as ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and detractors like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis praised Trump at the convention.

Indeed, Trump has remade the GOP in his image — literally, as some convention delegates donned ear bandages to stand in solidarity with their wounded leader.

Nothing, it seems, can slow Trump’s roll.

For one of the rare times with Trump in charge of the Republican Party, conservatives appear to be firing on all cylinders and free from distractions.

Meanwhile, Democrats have plunged into disarray.

Biden has not been able to shake calls for him to step aside following his dismal debate, with reports this week indicating powerful figures such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are pushing Biden to drop out.

Big Democratic donors are sounding alarms and freezing funds. Now the president has covid.

And nearly all of the negative press coverage surrounding politics is stuck on the Democrats, as it has been for the past three weeks.

Even so, there’s still plenty of time left in the presidential race and it’s not clear where things will go from here.

Polling gives an edge to Trump, particularly in the all-important swing states including Pennsylvania, but the lead is not large, and experts say Democrats have time to recover.

Rumblings about a new Democratic presidential nominee — Vice President Kamala Harris has attracted the most buzz — could shake things up and alter the trajectory of the race.

Alison Dagnes, professor and chair of the political science department at Shippensburg University, said the aftermath of the assassination attempt against Trump and the message pushed during the Republican convention have fired up the GOP and Trump’s political base to new heights during this campaign cycle.

“One of the most used words at the Republican convention is they are out to ‘get’ him,” Dagnes said. “It really solidified Donald Trump’s self-description as a target.”

GOP plateau?

Emerson College Polling in Massachusetts, one of the first major polling firms to test voters’ stances following the Trump shooting on July 13, found Trump with marginal gains in approval since March.

The July 15-16 poll showed 46% of registered voters across the nation support Trump, the same percentage that supported him in Emerson’s June poll.

In the crucial battleground states, when compared with March, Trump gained one point each in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and two points in Arizona, while he lost a point in Michigan.

Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said this poll and others raise the question of whether Trump has reached his support ceiling, and if Republicans’ recent momentum is more about Biden’s fallout from the June 27 debate.

Samuel Chen is an Allentown-based political strategist who works on local and state campaigns. In the past, he worked with Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania who often criticized Trump, including Pat Toomey, the former U.S. senator, and Charlie Dent, a former congressman.

Chen said Republicans easily won the last couple of weeks of the presidential race, and he expects the convention to provide another small boost.

Right now, Trump is winning the race, Chen said.

But Chen isn’t yet sold that things will expand beyond that for Republicans.

He spoke last week to moderate Republicans who aren’t Trump fans and said they have mixed reactions to the convention.

While they appreciated Haley’s speech, and Trump’s gesture in inviting her after a contentious primary, Chen said they viewed it mostly as Haley genuflecting to Trump, not so much a sign that Trump is making the Republican Party a bigger tent.

Chen also said the selection of Ohio’s 39-year-old U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance as Trump’s running mate did not go over well in moderate Republican circles.

Chen acknowledged Trump might not need to successfully woo those moderates to win, given Biden’s abysmal approval, but said that nothing in the last few weeks is expanding Trump’s constituency.

“If it moves 1% in Pennsylvania, that might be the difference. But across the board, I don’t know how much it really moves the needle,” Chen said of Trump’s fortuitous week.

Trump’s primetime speech on Thursday night, which lasted more than 90 minutes, sent mixed messages.

Somber about the attempt on his life, Trump honored Buffalo Township firefighter Corey Comperatore, a rallygoer who was killed in the shooting. Some pundits gave the usually bombastic candidate high praise for striking a softer tone.

But after about 25 minutes of reflection, Trump pivoted back to his usual self, rambling, going off script and attacking Pelosi, calling her “Crazy Nancy.” He decried the criminal charges against him for his role in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol.

Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said the country’s sharply divided politics is reflected in the lack of movement in the polls.

Trump’s demeanor doesn’t help things, Borick said.

“For Trump, given how divisive he’s been, I don’t know how his numbers rise,” Borick said. “He might have a ceiling in terms of support among all Americans.”

Dem disarray

While support might be static for Republicans, decline is dominating the Democrats.

Calls for Biden to drop out have been persistent over the past week, even after a short pause following the attempted assassination of Trump.

Increasingly, members of Congress, including Democratic senators, called on Biden to pass the torch following the conclusion of the Republican convention.

Chen said the only bright spot for Democrats was in the aftermath of the Trump shooting as they united in their condemnation of political violence. Some Republicans, meanwhile, blamed the assassination attempt on Biden and his rhetoric.

That small moment of Democratic unity was short-lived, Chen said, and was quickly overtaken by more headlines about Democrats calling for Biden to step aside.

Biden has tried to shift the narrative by holding more rallies, sitting down for televised interviews and introducing bold policy proposals, such as term limits for Supreme Court justices. But that hasn’t slowed the calls for him to drop out of the race or improved his popularity among voters.

Recent polling indicates Biden has been losing some support but is still locked in a relatively tight race.

Emerson polling taken after the Trump shooting shows Biden has lost two points nationally compared with his support in June, and is four percentage points behind Trump.

A CBS poll taken Tuesday through Thursday, when the Republican convention was in full force, showed Trump ahead of Biden nationally, 52%-47%, a three-point swing in Trump’s favor compared with earlier in July.

Paul Adams, associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, said a big change in the Biden campaign could move things drastically — but there are no guarantees.

“I think it could be huge, potentially,” Adams said of the possibility of Biden dropping out. “But I also think that in many ways, if Biden stays in the race, his numbers will stabilize. It’s technically a long way to November.”

New nominee?

Despite a growing chorus for Biden to step aside and support another Democratic nominee, the president has stuck with his convictions, and his campaign is moving forward.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign, said Friday on MSNBC that the president is “absolutely” remaining in the race, adding that “he is the best person to take on Donald Trump.”

Trump, despite his recent momentum, remains deeply unpopular with Americans.

More than 54% of Americans see Trump in an unfavorable light, compared with 43% who see him favorably, according to a July 19 poll compilation from The Hill. Biden’s favorability ratings are slightly worse than Trump’s.

The uncertainty over Biden’s future, combined with both candidates’ poor approval ratings, has led to a climate where nothing can really be predicted, said Muhlenberg’s Borick.

But Borick noted the situation with potentially the biggest upside is the replacement of Biden with a new candidate.

“For Biden, if he were to step aside, there will be great uncertainty about what comes next, but there will be an opportunity in terms of an upside to expand the coalition,” Borick said. “It’s hard to imagine changing the nature of the race if Biden is the standard bearer.”

Harris has been floated as the most likely replacement if Biden were to depart the race, since she can easily access the campaign’s war chest and is a member of the administration.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, has not said whether she thinks Biden should step aside. But if he does, she said Harris is the “obvious choice.”

Dagnes suggested Biden’s withdrawal from the race is the only factor that could likely cause a seismic shift in the race.

Like Lee, Dagnes agreed that Harris would be a strong pick to run against Trump. Her background as California’s attorney general would stand in stark contrast to Trump’s criminal convictions. At 59, Harris would avoid attacks on age. And her experience as a tenacious prosecutor would provide a defense against any accusations of being meek and feeble.

“Shifting the candidate will shift the narrative,” Dagnes said.