The left condemned President Donald Trump for inciting violence against the media. The right scoffed, and called the bomb scare a false flag.

But even as authorities discovered more suspicious packages on Thursday — including two sent to former Vice President Joe Biden — the needle in congressional races across the country has hardly budged.

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Despite cable television coverage and #fakebombs trending on Twitter, Democratic candidates on Thursday were still pinning their fundraising appeals to health care, while Republicans were rallying base voters around taxes and the threat of impeachment.

The prospect of an “October surprise” has loomed over both parties for months, and not without reason. In 2016, the WikiLeaks release of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s hacked emails, and FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of Clinton’s email investigation, upended the final days of the presidential campaign. In the 2014 midterms, campaigns were forced to contend with an Ebola outbreak in Dallas and claims of ISIS slipping combatants across the border.

But the bomb scare?

“Nah,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist based in New York. “Every day is another form of political Novocain. It’s like having needles put in your teeth and you finally get adjusted to it.”

Even in New York, he said, where police on Thursday removed a possible suspicious package addressed to the actor and activist Robert De Niro, Sheinkopf said, “New Yorkers are kind of nonplussed by the whole thing … A building collapses in New York and the people keep going.”

The impact of the suspicious packages could change significantly if one detonates, especially if someone is hurt or killed. But the current political effect appears to be impressionistic: Democrats believe public interest in the packages could add weight to their arguments about restoring civility in Washington — while campaigning explicitly on more traditional issues.

In Nevada, Rep. Jacky Rosen, the Democrat bidding to unseat Republican Sen. Dean Heller, warned in a fundraising blast Thursday of “more extremists on the Supreme Court. Millions more without health care. Huge cuts to Medicare.” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) began running Facebook ads casting her Republican opponent, Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley, as beholden to “dark money special interests.”

With campaigns focused on early voting and base turnout, the FBI’s investigation of suspicious packages has been relatively muted.

“It’s irrelevant to voters’ considerations about whether or not they like or hate Donald Trump, and that’s really the heart of the matter,” said John Thomas, a Republican media strategist involved in House and Senate races in multiple states. “The only caveat is, as we learn more about who perpetrated the crime, that may change the story.”

For now, Thomas said, “We’re kind of already moving on. It’s not in voters’ top consideration sets: It’s not a world war, it’s not relating to a dinner table issue and it probably does not change your opinion of Donald Trump.”

Dave Jacobson, a Democratic strategist working on House races in California, said of the discovery of suspicious packages, “It just happened, so I feel like it hasn’t soaked in.”

Still, Jacobson said it is “plausible that it does have an impact.”

“I think the unprecedented political animosity that Donald Trump has infused in this country is unparalleled, it’s not normal, and the vitriol that he has cemented in this election cycle is not good for anyone,” he said. “I do think that voters are going to approach the polls with the mindset that we have a president who is sowing discord across this country.”

The packages containing potential explosive devices discovered this week have all been sent to public figures who have been the subject of Trump’s vitriol, including Hillary Clinton, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder. A package addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan at CNN resulted in the evacuation of the cable network’s employees from its offices in New York.

Trump, who recently praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Montana) for body slamming a reporter in 2017, called for unity on Wednesday, while his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rebuked efforts to associate his rhetoric with the suspicious packages.

Trump himself said on Twitter on Thursday, “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News.”

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who is bidding to survive a fierce challenge from Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke in Texas, laid blame on the media, too, for its coverage of the suspicious packages. “The media’s doing what the media does, which is any narrative they can twist against Trump, they will do so,” Cruz told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

But the bomb scare was hardly first on Cruz’s — or Hewitt’s — mind, coming only after Cruz lit into O’Rourke for his association with progressive Democrats and donors and for his views on immigration. By the end of the interview, it was back to the traditional script.

“We’re seeing an economic boom throughout Texas and throughout the country that is incredible,” Cruz said. “And so we simply have to tell the truth, talk about policies that work and make a difference in people’s lives.”

Burgess Everett and James Arkin contributed to this report.

A day after several leading Democrats were found to have been targeted by package bombs, Republicans have identified one of their own as a victim: President Donald Trump.

As of Thursday afternoon, less than 36 hours after the first packages were discovered, White House officials and outside advisers bitterly protested the notion that Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric might have inspired whoever sent the packages.

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The alleged main offender was a familiar one — the news media, which conservatives insisted had rushed to unfair conclusions in an effort to undermine the president less than two weeks before the midterm elections. The blame-casting came a day after Trump issued an uncharacteristic call for political unity.

“Look, it’s the media’s doing what the media does, which is any narrative that they can twist against Trump, they will do so,” Sen Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

In an interview with POLITICO, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who traveled Wednesday with Vice President Mike Pence on Air Force Two, said past incidents in which Republican politicians were threatened drew far less coverage than this week’s attempted bombings, which have dominated news coverage for two days running.

“I don’t think the same level of media scrutiny was received as we are seeing today,” Lewandowski said, citing incidents in which letters with white powder (later found to be harmless) were sent to the president’s sons, as well as threats against Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight.

“I think it is absolutely disgraceful that one of the first public statements we heard from CNN yesterday was to put the blame and responsibility of this despicable act on the president and on me personally,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Thursday.

She subsequently told reporters that Trump is no more responsible for the attempted bombings than Sen. Bernie Sanders was responsible “for a supporter shooting up a baseball practice field last year,” referring to the June 2017 Alexandria, Va., shooting in which four people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) were shot.

The coordinated pushback echoes one of Trump’s most frequent reactions to harsh criticism: give no ground and shift the blame to others.

That strategy could benefit Republicans on Election Day next month by rallying Trump’s conservative base against one of its favorite bogeymen, the “fake news” media, which Trump has long insisted is biased against him. Some Trump supporters even accused the media of seeking to change the subject from a caravan of migrants approaching the Mexican border that is considered a winning political theme for Trump.

“So many voters mistrust the media, Trump has found blaming the press an effective political strategy in a variety of contexts,” a former Trump White House official told POLITICO.

The fact that one of the package was delivered to the New York offices of CNN did not deter the conservative denunciations of the media. (That package was addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan, possibly as a result of confusion over his role as a commentator for another cable network, MSNBC.)

Nor did an angry statement on Wednesday from CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, who decried the White House’s “continued attacks on the media.” In Thursday remarks to reporters, Sanders specifically criticized CNN for its coverage of Trump.

Trump allies, who have parroted his past attacks on the news media, didn’t bat an eye when he accused journalists in a tweet Thursday morning of contributing to “a very big part of the Anger we see today in our society.”

American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, a Trump ally, called the string of attempted bombings a “wake-up call for everybody,” but also encouraged Trump to keep exposing the media’s “irresponsible” coverage.

“I think it’s part of the irresponsible coverage when I hear members of the media say CNN got this package because of Trump’s rhetoric. To equate that with wanting to send bombs is extremely irresponsible,” said Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes is the White House’s director of strategic communications.

Asked if Trump might omit from future rallies his claim that journalists are “the enemy of the people,” Schlapp responded: “I hope not.”

“I think it’s part of the irresponsible coverage when I hear members of the media say CNN got this package because of Trump’s rhetoric,” he said.

But as authorities on Thursday investigated more suspicious packages addressed to former Vice President Joe Biden and film star Robert De Niro, a leading critic of the president, some White House allies wavered on the appropriateness of Trump’s “Fake News” shtick.

“I don’t think he should stop pointing out that the press is biased toward him and the enemy of the people,” said former Fox News host and Trump pal Eric Bolling.

“That said, words do matter, as Jeff Zucker pointed out. And caution should be exercised on both sides,” Bolling added.

The response from Trump and his allies glossed over much of Trump’s divisive rhetoric. In recent years, Trump has said he would pay the legal bills of supporters who roughed up protesters at his rallies, tweeted a video of himself tackling a man with a CNN logo superimposed across his face, and last week made light of a Republican congressman who was convicted of assault for body-slamming a reporter.

Other prominent Democrats who were sent suspicious devices (the viability of the devices remains unclear) include former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and his wife and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Eric Holder, the liberal billionaire donor George Soros, actor Robert De Niro and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.). Several of those Democrats have been recent subjects of Trump’s criticism.

Trump previewed a shift in focus to the media’s role in amplifying the attempted bombings during a Wednesday night rally in Wisconsin. “The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories,” he said to applause.

On Thursday morning, he went further. “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description,” he wrote on Twitter. “Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

Meanwhile, influential figures in Trump’s world have been publicly floating conspiracy theories, citing no evidence, about the episode, including that the person or people responsible for sending the packages were not Trump supporters. Authorities have not yet publicly identified suspects in the incidents.

“Fake News–Fake Bombs,” Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, who regularly speaks to Trump, tweeted Thursday morning. “Who could possibly benefit by so much fakery?”

Dobbs subsequently deleted the tweet, along with a second tweet asserting that “Fake News has just successfully changed the narrative from the onslaught of illegal immigrants and broken border security to ‘suspicious packages.’”

Over the past 24 hours, former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker has twice claimed on Fox News that the pipe bombs may have come from “someone who is trying to get the Democratic vote out and incur sympathy,” as he put it Wednesday.

Trump’s aides are urging him to resist indulging such theories, however, and to instead stick to talking points about civility and unity. One Republican close to the White House said Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive, is among those making that case.

Inside the White House, the attempted package bombings were also a reminder of the potential risks that government officials face. The White House’s Management Office sent staffers who work in the Executive Office of the President an email on Thursday explaining how to identify and handle suspicious letters or packages, according to a copy of the email obtained by POLITICO.

Emily Stephenson contributed to this story.