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President Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 14, 2020. Credit: Doug Mills, The New York Times / Redux
President Donald Trump’s campaign is picking up the pace of the president’s travels, gearing up for three rallies a day next week. But Republican strategists warn that more Trump is not what the campaign needs right now. What he needs, they say, is stick to the script, something the president is not programmed to do.
While Trump lags behind former Vice President Joe Biden in national polls, his obsession with dominating the news cycle, airing grievances, and sowing confusion has made it difficult for him to shift those numbers with independents, women, and seniors. have left. in recent weeks. At an Oct. 16 event in Fort Myers, Florida, billed as “Protecting America’s Older People,” Trump interrupted his own description of efforts to cut drug prices to call the Bidens “a family of the organized crime “and trigger a long series of unfounded accusations. about Hunter, the son of Joe Biden, who influenced American policy in Ukraine.
Republican pollsters and voices within his campaign want him to sharpen his re-election speech in recent weeks to get back on track talking about boosting jobs and preventing Democrats from adding justices to the Supreme Court. But Trump’s message is a mess. In Thursday night’s NBC News interview and town hall, Trump didn’t take any of those notes forcefully, instead getting deeper into the controversy by doubling down on his skepticism about wearing masks to curb the coronavirus pandemic, spreading unfounded allegations from widespread mail-order voters. fraud and refusing to expose the false QAnon online conspiracy theory that Democrats are running a secret network of pedophiles.
This was Trump’s political novelty in 2016: he could say the scandalous, change the subject, pay attention to his opponent’s weaknesses. It was a tactic that helped him get to the White House. But with so much chaos characterizing this year, voters are seeking stability and clarity on how the candidates will turn things around, strategists say. Trump is not built to provide that kind of reassurance. In fact, it has long been their strategy not to.
Instead, weeks before Election Day, Trump is giving rambling speeches, begging women to vote for him or the suburbs will burn, tweeting weird memes that insult older people. His loudmouth performance during the first debate hurt his numbers. His diagnosis and recovery from COVID-19 did not bring a rebound. Vice President Mike Pence gave his boss a chance to speak about Democrats trying to stack the Supreme Court after his own performance in the debate, but Trump drowned out the message the next day by complaining about the terms of the second presidential debate and the throw a dozen other brilliant distractions on Twitter. .
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Trump’s lack of discipline comes as his campaign is spending money to defend him in states that he easily won four years ago. It’s a politically fragile window that demands clarity and precision, but Trump seems incapable of living up to the moment. Campaign staff have prepared messages about Trump’s tax cuts, trade deals, farm subsidies and his record of job creation prior to the pandemic, but Trump rarely sticks to the script.
Now Republican senators are increasingly nervous about losing their majority due to Trump’s lack of focus. On Wednesday, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley tweeted to Trump that he should start his speeches by reading a five-thing card. You’ve gotten me to distinguish you from Biden, then “say what you want.”
Trump should “stop complaining that people are messing with him or trying to steal the election,” says Republican strategist Charlie Black. “What you have to do is talk about the economy, talk about filling the Supreme Court and little else,” says Black. Trump can keep talking about law and order, but he must do so in a tone that reaches female voters, says Black, adding that he cannot win unless he starts to attract more female voters than, even if they are interested in safety. public, “I don’t like macho-style combat.”
When Trump confronts Biden again on the debate stage on October 22, Black says he “needs to have a good debate. It is not a shouting match, but a regular debate. “There is still time to change things, he says, even with the increase in the first few votes that have already been cast.” If he did all that, we will have a close race, “he says. Black.
Today, the race does not seem closed. Biden’s campaign war chest is full of donations. In the battlefield states, the number of Biden ads is flooding Trump’s two-to-one and three-to-one ads in some places, says Travis Ridout, a professor of political science at Washington State University. “These are some pretty big imbalances,” he says, and the Biden advantage “has to explain at least some of the [Biden’s] expanding the lead in the polls in recent weeks. “
Trump himself publicly acknowledges that he has a sympathy problem. “So can I ask you to do me a favor? Women from the suburbs, could I please please please? he said at a rally in the Pennsylvania steel country on Oct. 12. “I don’t have that long to be so nice. I can do it, but I have to do it quickly. “A few days earlier, Trump acknowledged to Rush Limbaugh that he could lose the election” because they will say that I am not a good person. “
But Trump has spent a lot of time polishing his tough-guy personality, and he may not need to change it to win. An ad that ran during the World Series last year described Trump this way: “He’s not a nice guy, but sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to change Washington.” His campaign was based from the beginning on enhancing Republican participation and not on trying to expand its appeal. As of mid-October 2016, he was following Clinton in the polls only slightly less than he is following Biden now. He could still close the gap. Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote on Twitter Wednesday that Biden’s campaign believes the race is closer than conventional wisdom. “Like much closer,” he wrote.
Some Republican strategists think that because Trump won in 2016 when the political establishment told him he would surely lose, he now only trusts his own instincts. “They told him in 2016 that he was not going to win. Won. So he thinks he’s a political genius, ”says a Republican strategist who is consulting on Senate and House elections facing a possible Democratic wave. “He thinks that everything he touches turns to gold and his instincts are not so good,” says the strategist. The Trump campaign, he adds, is “reeling.”
The last hope, Black says, is for Trump to prevail in the past two weeks. In the final stretch of 2016, Trump became heavily attached to the teleprompter. “Kellyanne Conway came up to him for two weeks and said, ‘We’re getting her, you have a real shot at winning this, but this is what you have to do, and he did it,” says Black. “I hope Kellyanne or her family or someone is giving her a similar message right now. But I do not think so “.
Trump did not show that kind of discipline during Thursday night’s town hall. Instead, the president leaned toward his trademark combativeness, his willingness to accept conspiracy theories and spread falsehoods. Trump refused to acknowledge any missteps in the pandemic, falsely claiming that a study concluded that 85% of people who wear masks contract COVID-19. When NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Trump to expose the QAnon conspiracy theory, Trump first said he knew nothing about it. He then said that he knew the group is strongly “against pedophilia,” and so is he.
Trump supporters like him just the way he is, often saying that his rough edges give him an authenticity they don’t often see in polished politicians who scrutinize his words carefully. Trump campaign advisor Mercedes Schlapp tweeted that Biden City Hall, which aired at the same time Thursday on ABC, was looking forward to an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. For his critics, that’s exactly the point. “Imagine turning on the television, watching your president, and feeling your blood pressure go down instead of going up.” Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s former opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, wrote on Twitter Thursday night.
A voter at town hall Thursday night surprised Trump by congratulating him on his smile. Paulette Dale was introduced as a registered Republican who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and leans for Biden. “I have to say you have a big smile,” Dale told Trump. “You are so handsome when you smile.” Following this snap, Dale asked why he cut the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that made it possible for people brought into the country illegally as children to stay and work. Trump lied and said it was down due to the pandemic, which is not true.
After town hall, Gale told the Miami New Times that he wished Trump would smile more and talk less, repeating a line from the musical Hamilton. The president, he said, “intervenes every time he opens his mouth.”
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