By Steve Holland

(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will return on Saturday to rural Pennsylvania where he was nearly killed during a rally in the critical state, just a month before the Nov. 5 election.

Trump ally Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of social media platform X, will attend the rally. It will be Musk’s first appearance at a Trump campaign event since he endorsed the former president following the July 13 assassination attempt.

Trump narrowly escaped being shot in the head in Butler by a bullet that whizzed past and left his right ear bleeding, a near miss that exposed serious gaps in the former president’s security and led to heightened protections for his subsequent outdoor rallies.

It was the first of two attempts on Trump’s life. On September 15, a gunman hid undetected for nearly 12 hours at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, planning to kill him, prosecutors have said, but was thwarted by a US Secret Service agent working for Trump patrolled.

Republican officials hope Trump’s return to Butler will generate more support among his hardcore followers and boost turnout for him in Pennsylvania, a state he and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, see as crucial to win on Nov. 5. to win.

“I’m going back to Butler because I feel like I have an obligation to go back to Butler,” Trump told cable news network NewsNation earlier this week. “We never finished what we had to do.”

Trump will also be joined at the meeting by his vice presidential running mate, Senator JD Vance, and the family of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was fatally shot during the attempt on Trump’s life.

Another participant at the July meeting, Shane Chesher, 37, said he would return on Saturday for what he expects will be an emotional event.

Chesher said he witnessed the assassination attempt from a seat on the stage behind Trump and is still processing what happened.

“Honestly, to this day, I don’t know if I still understand what we went through that day,” Chesher said in an interview.

When he returned to the spot, he said, “it will be spiritual, and I think it will be very emotional, good and bad.”

The Butler shooting led to widespread criticism of the U.S. Secret Service and the resignation of its director.

Critics raised concerns about how the 20-year-old suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was subsequently shot and killed by Secret Service agents, gained access to a nearby rooftop with a direct line of sight to where Trump spoke.

A Secret Service investigation revealed communication gaps and a lack of commitment leading up to the shooting. In its aftermath, the agency approved additional security measures for Trump, including the use of bulletproof glass to protect him at outdoor rallies.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement before Saturday’s meeting that there had been “comprehensive changes and improvements to our communications capabilities, assets and protective operations.”

Trump credits turning his head to read a graph on a large video as saving his life. With blood dripping down his face, he raised a fist and shouted “fight” to his supporters, a vivid image of that day. He wore a white bandage around his injured ear for days after the shooting.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)