Fifty days remain until Election Day — and the race for the White House is once again in turmoil.
Two months after former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in western Pennsylvania, the Secret Service opened fire while Trump was golfing at one of his courses in southern Florida, seemingly preventing a second assassination attempt against the former president.
After decades of no assassination attempts against a sitting president or a major party’s presidential candidate, for the second time this summer, the nation narrowly escaped a tragedy of a magnitude that would have deepened the nation’s already deeply entrenched polarization.
“Nothing can stop me. I will never surrender!” the former president pledged in a fundraising email sent to supporters on Sunday. post event.
Members of the FBI are seen at the crime scene outside the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15, 2024, following a shooting incident at former President Donald Trump’s golf course. The incident is being investigated as an assassination attempt against the former president. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
A top Trump ally, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, argued in a statement that “as Americans we must unite behind him in November to defend our republic and bring peace back to the world.”
It’s too early to predict whether this latest incident will have any impact on the race between Trump and him. Vice President Kamala Harris Will replace President Biden.
The only thing that is certain is that the time left in the 2024 campaign is very short.
Harris stressed that “time is running out” as she called on supporters at a fundraiser Saturday to volunteer and encourage their friends to vote.
“Please join our teams in our battleground states and help people register to vote. … And talk to your neighbors and friends about it,” he urged.
What do Fox News’ latest power rankings show in the presidential race?
With the first and potentially only debate between the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees now behind us, and early voting and absentee ballots beginning, the contest between Harris and Trump remains a margin-of-error race in seven crucial battleground states that determined the outcome of Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine the winner of the 2024 election.
Fox News Power Rankings Presidential Forecast.
latest Fox News Power Rankings Six of the seven states are currently rated as toss-ups.
These states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada — have seen the most campaigning from both the Democratic and GOP tickets and are advertising battlegrounds between the two parties.
“I think it’s going to be an effort to get voters out and about in these seven states,” veteran Republican strategist Nicole Schlinger told Fox News. “Whoever does the best job of getting their voters to turn out will win.”
Harris and Trump hold rival rallies in key battleground states
Harris’s campaign touted its campaign last week, claiming a “historic, 24-hour victory.” Fundraising Ability $47 million was raised immediately following the debate.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will debate on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The money raised by the Harris campaign is the latest sign of a fundraising surge by the vice president in the nearly two months since she replaced Biden on the Democrats’ 2024 national ticket.
“Fifty days is a lifetime in politics, but today I would much rather be Kamala Harris than Donald Trump,” said Joe Caizo, a longtime Democratic strategist who is a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns. “I think the enthusiasm is still very high with the Democrats, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Shower of cash: Harris raises big bucks after debate with Trump
The Harris campaign has emphasized that it is focusing the majority of its fundraising on grassroots outreach and efforts to get people out the vote, saying it is “dedicating its resources to reaching the voters who will decide the election.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Bojangles’ Coliseum on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
According to the campaign, the massive ground game operation, originally built when Biden was a candidate, includes more than 312 offices and more than 2,000 staffers in key battleground states coordinated between the presidential campaign, the DNC and state Democratic parties.
In a direct comparison of the Harris campaign and the DNC compared to the Trump campaign and the RNC, Democrats have a huge ground game advantage. However, Trump relies on a handful of aligned outside groups to help run polling operations, which are traditionally done by presidential campaigns.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley objected to the suggestion that Democrats have a stronger get-out-the-vote campaign.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Tucson, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“No, they don’t have a strong ground game. I feel very, very comfortable about the ground game that we’re building through Trump Force 47,” the RNC chairwoman insisted in an interview with Fox News Digital last week.
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Whatley pledged that “we have all the resources we need to get our message across to all the voters we’re talking to, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to finish this campaign, and we’ll win on November 5.”
Additionally, Schlinger, a veteran of several Republican presidential campaigns, says Trump has an edge on a key issue.
“The biggest issue voters are talking about is the economy, they believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction and they think Donald Trump would do a better job of fixing it,” he stressed. “I think it would be hard for Harris to explain how she would do anything different than Joe Biden in this regard.”
For undecided voters, familiarity with the Republican nominee could give Trump an edge, Schlinger said.
“About a third of voters said they need to know more about Kamala Harris. With President Trump, you know what you’re going to get, and I think that’s an advantage for Republicans,” he argued.
