It’s been less than a month since former President Donald Trump walked into the Republican National Convention to thunderous applause. But it may as well have been a lifetime ago.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket, she’s seen a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm, record donations, and a surge in the polls.
Why We Wrote This
With momentum on Vice President Kamala Harris’ side – and time running short – Republicans are advising former President Donald Trump to focus more on policy, less on personal attacks.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, seems unsure how to recalibrate against a fresh, younger opponent, with fewer than 100 days until the election.
His initial responses – from questioning Ms. Harris’ racial identity to holding long, meandering press conferences – have only reinforced the race’s new dynamic.
Forces outside of Mr. Trump’s control have contributed to his changing fortunes. There’s been increased scrutiny of his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and last weekend, Mr. Trump’s campaign was hacked.
But Mr. Trump’s behavior hasn’t helped, and he now seems to be squandering an advantage he’d held in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – battleground states Mr. Trump won in 2016 but then lost in 2020.
Unlike in 2016, says Matt Wylie, a Republican strategist in South Carolina, Mr. Trump can’t rely on taunting nicknames to damage his opponent.
“Trump can change this,” he says. “But it has to be about the why.”
It’s been less than a month since former President Donald Trump walked into the Republican National Convention to thunderous applause, having survived an assassination attempt and holding a commanding lead against an opponent many viewed as enfeebled. But it may as well have been a lifetime ago.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket, she’s seen a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm, record donations, and a surge in the polls. And Mr. Trump seems to have been thrown back on his heels, unsure how to recalibrate against a fresh, younger opponent, with fewer than 100 days until the election.
His initial responses to the sudden momentum shift – from questioning Ms. Harris’ racial identity, to disparaging Georgia’s popular Republican governor, to holding long, meandering press conferences – have only reinforced the race’s new dynamic.
Why We Wrote This
With momentum on Vice President Kamala Harris’ side – and time running short – Republicans are advising former President Donald Trump to focus more on policy, less on personal attacks.
Elections are about contrasts, and right now at least, the new matchup has created a less flattering contrast for Mr. Trump. Suddenly, he’s the “old” candidate, with an act that seems stale after nearly a decade on the national political scene. Many Republicans outside the campaign, from Vivek Ramaswamy to Nikki Haley, have been encouraging Mr. Trump to refocus his message on policy, tying Ms. Harris to the Biden record and casting her as more liberal than mainstream America.
Thus far, however, Mr. Trump has been falling back on his tried-and-true method of making the campaign more about personality and trying to dominate news cycles – a strategy that has only once resulted in victory, in 2016, when he lost the popular vote but eked out an Electoral College win. He’s even bringing back some veterans from his previous campaigns, such as former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“He is no longer the new thing, so he needs to find a way to demonstrate how he would create a better future for Americans,” says Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and a former communications director in Mr. Trump’s State Department. “If policy matters, of course it is not just possible but probable that he wins this race. But only he can do it.”
Messages in a Thursday press conference
At a press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, Mr. Trump began by reading several economic talking points. “Grocery prices have skyrocketed,” he said, in front of tables filled with coffee cans, breakfast cereal, and sausage, adding that the price of gas had reached “an absolutely beautiful number” under his own administration. But the former president soon pivoted, speaking at length about how wind turbines kill birds and praising the strength of controversial Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.
When Mr. Trump took reporters’ questions after speaking for roughly 45 minutes, he was asked if he planned to heed Republicans’ warnings and focus on a disciplined message rather than on personal attacks.
“I think I’m entitled to personal attacks,” said Mr. Trump. “I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”
Why Trump’s polling edge has eroded
Forces outside of Mr. Trump’s control, of course, have contributed to his changing fortunes. There has been increased scrutiny of his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, for past controversial comments, including one that referred to Democratic women as “childless cat ladies.” And last weekend, it was revealed that Mr. Trump’s campaign had been hacked, with confidential documents sent to several news organizations – an act that Mr. Trump has attributed to the Iranian government, although the source has not yet been confirmed.
But Mr. Trump’s own behavior hasn’t helped.
“Saying ‘This is unfair’ and calling [the change in the Democratic ticket] a coup, these aren’t things that voters care about,” says Matt Wylie, a Republican strategist based in South Carolina. “He just seems to be talking about the wrong things … things that are only going to alienate suburban women, Black, and Hispanic voters.”
To make matters worse, the former president now seems to be squandering an advantage he’d held in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – states that Mr. Trump had won in 2016 but then lost in 2020. As President Biden’s poll numbers sank, Mr. Trump had opened up a clear lead in what had been Democrats’ “blue wall,” notes Mr. Wylie. “It was up to Harris to rebuild that wall, but Trump now has helped Harris.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll from last week found Ms. Harris leading in all three must-win states by 4 percentage points among likely voters. It’s a significant swing from polling in late July before Mr. Biden exited the race, when Mr. Trump led Pennsylvania and Michigan by 5 points, and Wisconsin by 4 points. Similarly, a new Franklin and Marshall poll released Thursday found Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump by 3 points in Pennsylvania.
Alex Brandon/AP
Election may be close in the end
Still, many election experts believe that despite Mr. Trump’s recent struggles, the Harris honeymoon will end at some point – and the election is likely to be very close.
Dan Naylor, chair of the Lackawanna County GOP in northeast Pennsylvania, a region that could determine who wins the state, says he believes Republican voters are going to be even more motivated to turn out now that their candidate could be the underdog. Mr. Trump announced plans to hold a rally in nearby Wilkes-Barre on Saturday.
“The former president needs to stick to the issues and stay away from the personal attacks,” says Mr. Naylor. “He needs to stay the course.”
Mr. Trump remains ahead in Georgia and North Carolina, and Ms. Harris’ recent polling leads in Arizona and Nevada are minimal. Notably, although Mr. Trump’s favorability ratings remain underwater in the recent Franklin and Marshall poll, says Berwood Yost, director of the college’s Center for Opinion Research, they have actually improved by a few points since the last survey.
“It’s not so much that Trump’s numbers have sagged; it’s that the Democratic base has reenergized itself,” says Mr. Yost. “Now there is no [partisan] difference in enthusiasm like there was before. … The factions within the Democratic Party have rallied back to Harris.”
Will the momentum advantage for Harris last?
And while that rallying has resulted in a lot of free media coverage over the past few weeks – the same type that helped drive Mr. Trump’s first campaign – that may not last.
Ms. Harris has gotten “a cushy ride” from the press, says Terry Sullivan, a GOP strategist who managed Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “She has been built up and has not had to talk about a single policy issue. She hasn’t had to lay out how she’s different from Biden. … [But] the good news about that is that what the media gives, the media takes away.”
Republicans have been hammering on the fact that Ms. Harris has yet to put forward a substantial policy vision or hold a press conference or interview since she became the nominee.
The Harris honeymoon will likely continue through next week, as Democrats gather in Chicago for their convention. Once it ends, Republicans will need to work quickly to try to turn things around, or else the momentum could “carry Ms. Harris to the White House,” says Mr. Wylie, despite her running a campaign “based on nothing.”
Unlike in 2016, he says, Mr. Trump can’t rely on taunting nicknames to damage his opponent.
“Trump can change this,” says Mr. Wylie. “But it has to be about the why.”
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