The 2024 presidential election cycle will always include a tragic asterisk, in the form of a civilian casualty. Former Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed in a July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, now the GOP nominee.

The episode, in which a bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks grazed Trump’s ear, also instantly changed the nature of the 2024 campaign. How exactly the attempted assassination will affect the Nov. 5 election between Trump and President Joe Biden remains to be seen.

But so far, the Butler, Pennsylvania, violence, in which Crooks, 20, was killed by a Secret Service sniper seconds after firing at Trump, is one of several recent events that has put Biden on the political defensive.

Trump appeared on July 15 before the Republican National Convention crowd almost exactly 48 hours after the shooting, the first direct assault on a president, former president, or White House candidate since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan was shot by a lone gunman outside of the Washington Hilton. Reagan made a full recovery.

Trump’s convention arrival capped a strong nearly monthlong stretch, starting with the first presidential debate on June 27, during which the former president scored multiple crucial victories and Biden, by extension, lost ground in his bid for a second term, after defeating Trump in 2020 reasonably comfortably in the Electoral College, 306-232, with 270 needed to win.

Biden delivered a halting and politically devastating performance at their first debate stage faceoff. The president shuffled onto the stage, and his voice whispered and trailed off. Biden, 81, frequently lost his train of thought in trying to confront Trump, 78. All of which prompted a Democratic Party existential crisis over whether the occupant of the Oval Office should remain the nominee. It’s a debate that has not entirely abated. Biden insists he’s staying in and, as the winner of Democratic nominating contests earlier this year, has all the leverage to prevent his party from dumping him for a younger, more agile candidate.

Four days after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have “absolute” immunity for clearly official acts. The decision along ideological lines of the justices sent Trump’s indictment for allegedly trying to subvert the 2020 election back to a lower court, postponing any decision until after November’s election.

And on July 15, only hours before the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed a classified documents case against Trump brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Many legal experts had viewed it as the strongest and most clear-cut of the multiple indictments Trump faces.

Moreover, Trump likely helped himself with quick thinking and stagecraft as shots rang out in western Pennsylvania. In defiance, Trump raised his fist in front of an American flag in what instantly became an iconic image. He appeared to yell “Fight, fight, fight!” to the crowd before being ushered offstage. The Trump campaign quickly touted the former president’s reaction as a sign of strength, compared to Biden’s often lethargic public persona.

The Democratic nominee could still win

There are (thankfully) few data points about how assassination attempts bolster the public standing of presidential candidates or not.

On Oct. 14, 1912, former Milwaukee saloonkeeper John Schrank attempted to assassinate former President Theodore Roosevelt, who made a comeback on the Progressive Party ticket after being denied the Republican nomination in a fight against GOP President William Howard Taft. Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee when a bullet fired by Schrank lodged in Roosevelt’s chest after penetrating the former president’s steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page thick (single-folded) copy of his speech. Roosevelt famously went on with his campaign oration before heading to a hospital. But on Election Day, Roosevelt came up short against the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson. Though he did win more electoral votes than his comrade-turned-rival, Taft, and Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs.

Attempted assassination attempts twice were made at President Gerald Ford in September 1975 during separate visits to Northern California. Ford emerged unscathed but lost his bid for a full presidential term in November 1976 against Democratic rival Jimmy Carter.

And in the aftermath of the March 30, 1981, presidential assassination attempt, Reagan’s Gallup poll approval ratings went up by 8 points over three months. Reagan’s approval rating within three months then fell to their previous level of about 50%. However, public sympathy for the embattled president, who handled the episode with grace and good humor despite severe wounds, helped him push through Congress his tax-cutting economic plan.

Biden also can, in a political squint, find promising news in poll results that have otherwise been desultory. Several of the surveys show Trump leading Biden in most of the top swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with Trump within striking distance of states thought to be safely in the Biden camp, such as Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia

But a series of YouGov polls released at the start of the Republican National Convention show Democratic Senate candidates leading in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by margins ranging from 6 points to 12 points. And Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) leads his Republican rival 53% to 36%, per the YouGov poll.

Voters these days rarely split tickets between presidential candidates and Senate hopefuls. It used to happen with some frequency. Biden was elected to the Senate from Delaware in 1972 by beating an incumbent Republican even as President Richard Nixon scored a 49-state landslide reelection win. But by 2016, there were no split tickets, and there was only one in the 2020 cycle, when Biden won most of Maine’s electoral votes but Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) still was victorious.

So, the split-ticket data, in theory, give Biden and supporters reason to think all is not lost against Trump — even if the past several weeks have been one news disaster after another.

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Mostly, Biden has tried to turn the race back into a conventional presidential campaign. The president responded to the Trump assassination attempt by calling his Republican opponent to express relief that he was not more seriously wounded. Biden also urged voters to “lower the temperature” this campaign season. His campaign suspended television ads and its regular barrage of attack emails.

But that pause ended quickly. Once Trump picked Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his vice presidential nominee on July 15, the Biden campaign returned to its regularly scheduled political messaging.