By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College
As we mourn the death of a shooting victim and pray for the surviving Trump rally attendees who were wounded, as well as the former president himself, we also wonder what such an unprecedented event will have on the 2024 election. Many assume that the politician who survives an assassination attempt will get a huge boost in the polls, and coast to an easy victory. But history and surveys show otherwise.
The quintessential American campaign example of an assassination attempt came in 1972 when George Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Maryland. Wallace’s subsequent victories the following day feed into the myth that surviving an assassin’s bullets will propel the survivor to electoral success.
It’s also where we get the lessons of the impact of an assassination attempt wrong.
On May 15, 1972, George Wallace was campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination at a shopping center in Laurel, Maryland. Publicity seeker Arthur Bremer, who had stalked Wallace on the campaign trail, fired four shots into the Alabama Governor at close range—one bullet lodged into his spinal cord, paralyzing him for the rest of his life.
The next day, Wallace dominated the two states holding elections. In Maryland, Wallace won 41 delegates (and 38.67 percent of the vote) to six for South Dakota Senator George McGovern (who got 22.35 percent of the vote) and six for former Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (who took 26.75 percent of the vote).
Then, in Michigan, also on May 16, 1972, Wallace did even better in the popular vote, winning 50.96 percent of the vote (and 67 delegates) to 26.81 percent of the vote (and 38 delegates) for McGovern and 15.73 percent (27 delegates) to Humphrey—no one else in the race in either state govt 2.5 percent of the remaining votes.
That myth of the assassination attempt poll boost from those two primaries is so strong that it’s fed into perceptions that it helps any candidate who gets shot, like Ronald Reagan. Faking an assassination attempt to win elections has also been used as a trope by Hollywood, as seen in movies like Bob Roberts, Shooter, Machete, etc.
But there’s no evidence of anything more than a slight blip in the polls after any assassination attempt.
In the case of Wallace, he only won one other state after that: Texas, on June 13, 1972. There, at the state convention, he took 42 delegates or 32 percent of the total, ahead of McGovern (34 delegates), Humphrey (21 delegates) and “unpledged” (33 delegates), a rather underwhelming performance for a Southern Governor, especially compared to his May 16 successes. He never received 30 percent of the vote in any primary or convention after that, and only got over 20 percent twice (one was just barely in Oregon). As of June 27, he only had 12.5 percent of the delegates.
What’s more is that Wallace was doing better before he was shot. On March 14, 1972, Wallace won 75 delegates and 41.65 percent of the vote in Florida, with Humphrey finishing a distant second with six delegates and 18.56 percent of the vote. He won 68.16 percent of the vote (and all 49 delegates) in Tennessee on May 4. Two days later, Wallace got 37 of 57 delegates and 50.34 percent of the vote in North Carolina, with Humphrey getting second place and only 15.9 percent of the vote. And of course, he won every delegate in Alabama, where he was the sitting governor (and no one else seemed to compete there).
So Wallace won more states (4) before he was shot than after he was shot (3) and by much wider margins.
One might say, of course, he didn’t do well because he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down, but that rationale fails to explain Maryland, Michigan, and Texas’ votes. Moreover, he returned to work in early July as Alabama Governor and served until 1978. He ran again in 1976, only to finish even further behind in the nomination bid.
By the way, Arthur Bremer’s story served somewhat as an inspiration for the movie “Taxi Driver” where Robert De Niro wants to assassinate a politician to impress a prostitute, played by Jody Foster. Years later, John Hinckley Jr. sought to impress Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. I’ve found that this assassination attempt briefly boosted Reagan’s polls at the time, but those numbers came crashing back to earth, almost half of their value by the end of 1982 and early 1983. It was the economic recovery that contributed to Reagan’s successful reelection in 1984.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.
