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The Christian Post's top 10 news stories of 2024 (part 2)

Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally on Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident that will fuel fears of instability ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood smeared across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the gunman and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured.
Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally on Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident that will fuel fears of instability ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood smeared across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the gunman and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured. | REBECCA DROKE/AFP via Getty Images

1. Trump wins election in historic political comeback after 2 assassination attempts 

On Nov. 5, President-elect Donald Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote against his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, in an election cycle filled with numerous shocking and headline-grabbing events. 

Additionally, Republicans retained their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives while retaking the U.S. Senate from a slight Democrat majority.

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"The greatest comeback in political history," tweeted popular Republican political activist and podcaster Brilyn Hollyhand when Trump was declared the winner. "He's been impeached, beat, raided, indicted, arrested, and shot. This morning he won."

With his victory, Trump will become the first man elected to serve two nonconsecutive presidential terms since President Grover Cleveland, who was first elected in 1885, lost reelection to Benjamin Harrison in 1888 but then won the rematch against Harrison in 1892.

Trump is also the first convicted felon to win a presidential election, as he was found guilty on 34 charges by a New York jury in the "hush money" case. The litigation regards allegations that Trump falsified business records stemming from his alleged paying of porn star Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) $130,000 in 2016 to conceal an alleged extramarital affair from 2006 while he ran for president.

For his part, Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

During the Democratic primary season, Biden had easily won enough delegates to secure the nomination and was set for a rematch against Trump, whom he had defeated in 2020.

However, questions over the 81-year-old's mental fitness, especially following a widely criticized debate performance against Trump in June, prompted many to call for his resignation. 

On July 13, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed on top of a building and opened fire on Trump while he was speaking.

Crooks hit the upper part of Trump's right ear while the candidate was speaking, killed one rallygoer and severely injured two others before he was shot dead by a Secret Service counter-sniper.

Eight days after the assassination attempt on Trump, Biden released a statement announcing that he was dropping out of the race and would instead "focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term."

Biden endorsed Harris for the nomination, as did many party officials and Democrat politicians, leading to her being installed as the new presidential hopeful. This decision garnered controversy, as groups like Black Lives Matter argued that allowing Harris to get the nomination without a "public voting process" made the Democrats "a party of hypocrites."

Trump survived a second assassination attempt in September when an armed 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh got as close as 300 yards from the Republican candidate when he was at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida.

A Secret Service agent spotted Routh, however, and opened fire, prompting Routh to flee the golf course. He was apprehended by authorities soon after the incident.

As Election Day drew near, numerous polls had either Trump or Harris holding a slim lead over their opponent nationwide, with many political experts disagreeing on a likely outcome.

Historian Allan Lichtman, an American University professor known for having successfully predicted nine out of the last 10 presidential elections (2000 being the one he got wrong), had predicted a Harris victory.

Nate Silver, another prominent pollster and election forecaster, predicted that Trump had a slightly higher chance than Harris to win the election, though he felt the result would be very close.

"My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats," wrote Silver in an op-ed for The New York Times in October.

"But I don't think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone's gut — including mine. Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50. And you should be open to the possibility that those forecasts are wrong, and that could be the case equally in the direction of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris."

Michael Gryboski contributed to this report. 

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