How can Biden win now?

President Joe Biden was already under enormous political pressure. His efforts to recover from a botched debate performance were falling short, and increasing numbers of Democrats were urging him to step aside. The attack on Donald Trump has now upended the race again. While Biden is still fighting the perception that he’s too frail for the job, his opponent survived a shooting and walked away with his fist held high. No campaign playbook prepares you to run against that.

Democrats are privately worried that the assassination attempt strengthened Trump’s odds of winning in November–or at the least, complicated the president’s path to reelection. Biden spoke out forcefully against the violence, and other Democrats joined Republicans in condemning the attempted assassination. But that bipartisan pause is unlikely to last through today, as the Republican National Convention opens in Milwaukee.

A series of Newsweek interviews with Democratic party insiders, strategists and others revealed that they fall into two groups. (Many were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the political implications of the attack in what remains a raw and sensitive moment for the nation.) Some Democrats believe Biden’s campaign should wait several weeks if not longer before resuming a full-throated critique of Trump’s character and fitness to serve a second term in the White House.

“The assassination attempt cements Trump’s lead,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant who argued that going after Trump right now would backfire on Biden. “That’s the problem Biden faces. How do you compare yourself to a martyr? Because that’s the way Republicans will portray Trump.”

Others say Biden should quickly go back on the offensive to avoid falling further behind. Trump started pulling away from Biden in many national and battleground polls in the weeks since the presidential debate last month in Atlanta.

“Biden has to hammer him,” said one Democrat who asked not to be named, arguing that holding back would be a mistake with less than four months to go before Election Day. “I understand right now the initial response by the Biden campaign of wanting to pull back, take ads down and pause for a few days. But Donald Trump is not going to pause his campaign,” the Democrat said. “They’re going to hammer Democrats at the RNC, and we have to respond.”

The differing strategies reflect the challenge Biden faces as Republicans gather in Milwaukee to hand Trump the party’s third consecutive presidential nomination.

While Democrats debated Biden’s best path forward over the weekend, the president put the election aside in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

Biden swiftly condemned the attack and cut short a weekend visit to Delaware to return to the White House. Biden spoke with Trump by phone and the president’s campaign also took down campaign ads against Trump to underscore Biden’s condemnation of the assassination attempt.

In brief remarks at the White House on Sunday afternoon Biden said he was grateful that Trump was recovering and described their phone call as a “short but good conversation.”

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation,” Biden said. He later called for unity in a primetime Oval Office address Sunday night, using the setting presidents typically reserve for addressing the nation in moments of crisis.

Biden’s initial response signaled how he plans to approach the situation in the coming days. The comments were in keeping with his oft-stated desire to bridge partisan divides, one of the central themes of his 2020 and 2024 campaigns. Historians told Newsweek it was in line with the approach taken by presidents and other leaders who sought to reassure the public in response to the political violence of the 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in a span of five years.

“This was extra shocking for Americans who didn’t live through the 60s,” Ellen Fitzpatrick, a presidential historian at the University of New Hampshire, said of the attack on Trump.

But Democrats and independent analysts noted that Biden’s focus on bringing the country together also served a political purpose in shifting the attention back to his core campaign message and away from the scrutiny around his age and ability to serve another four years. “The silver lining for Biden in this case is that we are no longer talking about his age and acuity and the possibility of him stepping aside,” said Rob Casey, a partner at Signum Global Advisers, a policy and strategy firm.

Inside the Democratic Party, both supporters of Biden who think he should stay in and those who want him to exit the race said the assassination attempt likely reduces the odds that Biden drops out. Congressional Democrats who had been weighing joining the growing number of members calling on Biden to drop his campaign are now less likely to do so, several Democratic sources said. But others argued to increase the pressure on the president.

“Trump is already ahead. The argument that we need to change things up should only be stronger” now, said Aaron Regunberg, a member of Pass the Torch, a Democratic group that has organized a campaign to push Biden to drop his reelection bid.

Biden has resisted calls to leave the race and insisted repeatedly, in the weeks before the attack on Trump, that he can win in November despite public concerns that he’s too old for the job.

A Biden campaign official told Newsweek that Biden’s Oval Office address was part of an effort to send the message that Americans must “put to an end political violence in this country once and for all.” Biden is planning to reiterate the point in an interview with NBC on Monday night, the first night of the Republican convention, said the official.

“Following the president’s interview Monday evening, both the DNC and the campaign will continue drawing the contrast between our positive vision for the future and Trump and Republicans’ backwards-looking agenda over the course of the week,” the official said.

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Newsweek request for comment.

Democrats and Republicans watching Biden’s response acknowledged that Trump’s own reaction to the shooting may have more impact on the election than anything else.

Trump was speaking on stage Saturday at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when gunshots rang out. He ducked behind the lectern as Secret Service agents rushed to cover him. Moments later Trump stood up, with a bloodied face, and raised a fist in the air as he was led off stage by his security detail.

The iconic image was carried live on television and then splashed across social media and front pages the following day, offering Americans a vivid reminder of Trump’s uncanny political instincts.

Trump later said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that he was shot in the ear but was doing fine, and expressed condolences to the other victims of the attack. One person at the rally was killed and two people were wounded by the shooter, who was killed by law enforcement authorities at the scene.

“Trump has handled this very well,” said Sheinkopf, the Democratic strategist.

But Democrats and Republicans warned that Trump could quickly lose sympathy if his rhetoric shifts. In the weeks after the debate, Trump has largely refrained from attacking Biden’s age while taking a more moderate position on issues like abortion and distancing himself from the controversial Project 2025 group. Trump’s track record suggests that won’t last long, said one Democrat who asked not to be named.

“You put him out there in front of a crowd screaming and chanting his name and I’ve never seen him not play to the crowd,” the source said. “I’m struggling to see a situation where he goes out in front of the RNC and he doesn’t play the old hits.”

“This is an opportunity for Trump to completely flip the script and bring folks together. But that is not his DNA. That’s not who he is,” said a former Trump adviser who asked not to be named. “Trump is incredibly savvy. He knows today is not the day to turn the screw. But at the convention we’ll see Trump maximizing this to his benefit.”