Will the attempted assassination of Trump sway voters? A professor explains if it will impact the election.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Two days after former president Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there are lots of questions about how the tragedy could impact the outcome of the presidential election in a few months.
The shooting at Trump's rally on Saturday that killed one person and injured Trump and two others sent shockwaves across the U.S. and has many wondering if it will change the outcome of the November election.
The truth is, no one knows if it will sway voters or not.
"I don't think what has happened will radically change people's minds, because most of us are kind of locked in. If you were a Trump supporter, you're probably going to continue to be so. And if you were a (President Joe) Biden supporter, you're going to continue to be so," said Eugene Mazo, associate professor of law and political science at Duquesne University.
Mazo said the question is what happens to the people in the middle who don't know who they're voting for?
"Who is that person? Why is that person not decided? That's who the campaigns are going to go after," Mazo said.
"Whether any of the events have changed that person's mind, picking a vice president, the horrible events in Butler the other day, the felony convictions, Biden's age and refusal to get out of the race, we don't know if any of those things have changed that person's mind," he added.
Mazo said most research shows undecided voters make up their minds very close to the election, and we're still a few months away. No one knows who's going to win in November, and Mazo said that should encourage people to turn out to vote.
The assassination attempt on Trump comes at a time when Americans are more polarized than ever.
"I think the right answer is that this should not happen in our country," Mazo said. "And that if this is where politics has gotten us to, we're on the wrong path. This shouldn't happen in American politics, and all research shows that Americans are more divided today than they have been at any time in the last half-century. And what we do to bring people closer together to a middle, whatever that means, is the real challenge that we face as a society and as a democracy."