Welcome to the Jungle

donald trump jd vance
People ultimately vote for the presidential nominee, not the vice presidential nominee, and Vance will be an afterthought until the vice presidential debate against Harris, barring some major gaffe or stumble on the campaign trail. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Peter Hamby
July 16, 2024

This election cycle went from boring to bananas in just a few weeks, punctuated with a bullet this weekend when a 20-year-old shooter attempted to assassinate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. The aftermath of the shooting, and Trump’s instinctive bravado before the assembled cameras, has been met with some hyperventilating assessments from pundits and from anguished Democrats who now believe the election is gone, fumbled by Joe Biden in the debate and run back for a go-ahead touchdown by Trump in the days since. As one “senior House Democrat” told Axios over the weekend, in a now-viral quote: “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.”