Trump returns to the same town he was shot in as mythology grows with his base

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : Many people in the convention crowd wore white ear bandages in solidarity with Trump, who gave his nomination acceptance speech with a bandaged ear.
58% : "Barbara Res worked for Trump in the 1980s and 1990s as executive vice president of the Trump Organization and said he wanted people to think he is "all powerful.
57% : Surviving an assassination attempt rallied support around Trump and gave his campaign a feeling of inevitability.
53% : Among the MAGA base, Trump was elevated to near martyr status.
51% : Trump already was looking strong heading into the convention after President Joe Biden's debate performance a few weeks earlier.
48% : Crooks opened fire on Trump on Saturday, July 13, just two days before the Republican National Convention was set to begin in the largest city of the 2024 swing state of Wisconsin.
46% : Shooting imagery - most notably the picture of Trump pumping his fist on stage moments after being shot, blood smeared across his face - has become part of the MAGA movement's iconography, reproduced on everything from shirts to flags and Christmas ornaments.
42% : Trump often tells his supporters that his adversaries are coming to get them, and they're only going after him because he's standing in the way.
42% : Instead of focusing on Crooks, Trump has pointed to Democratic rhetoric.
41% : "Trump has incorporated the attempt on his life into a broader campaign narrative.
41% : ""The thing that he likes to talk about most is Trump," Bolton said, adding: "He wants to try to appear as a heroic figure, and he may to some people, in this case he's not making it up.
41% : "Look at the world: They're after Trump.
40% : Nobody would be shooting at me," Trump said at an Oct. 1 event in Wisconsin.
40% : "Bolton said Trump benefits more politically from casting the attack as part of a larger plot to get him, rather than focusing on a specific individual.
35% : A USA TODAY analysis found that Trump held at least 51 public events since the shooting and mentioned it at 31 of them.
35% : Musk endorsed Trump on the day of the shooting, sharing a video showing Trump standing up after being hit, pumping his fist, and yelling "fight, fight, fight.
32% : "I took the bullet for democracy," Trump said in West Palm Beach on July 26, adding: "I might have taken it because of their rhetoric," referring to Democrats.
31% : "It's worked for Trump... always being the victim," Bolton said, adding: "It worked at least once to make him president, and may work again.
29% : "Trump never mentioned Crooks in his 51 public appearances since the shooting that USA TODAY analyzed.Crooks, 20, remains an enigma.
28% : Polls showed Trump ahead of Biden in the key swing states, and there were growing calls for the incumbent 81-year old Democratic president to drop out of the race.
26% : Trump has blamed Democrats for the two assassination plots against him, adding to what he claims is a historic level of persecution that extends to the legal cases against him, his two impeachments and a special counsel investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties with Russia.
25% : No candidate has made surviving an assassination attempt a campaign issue to the extent Trump has.
25% : In Michigan, a few days earlier, Trump said the only presidents who have "shots fired at them" are "consequential" ones.
24% : Trump hasn't stopped talking about the shooting, though.
20% : More: As Donald Trump returns to Butler, Pa., there's one name he never mentions: Thomas CrooksFour days after being shot, Trump took the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and declared he had a story to tell, and only would tell it once because it was so traumatic.
17% : Like Trump, Roosevelt incorporated his shooting into his campaign.
11% : Many of Trump's supporters believe the shooting is part of a persecution pattern against Trump.

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