President Donald Trump and his campaign have spent months deploying a series of attacks on Joe Biden, describing him as weak, unfit, and a leftist tool.
But as Biden rises in the polls, it is increasingly clear that the attacks are not sustained. As such, Trump’s mission to define Biden for voters has been difficult.
Republican and Democratic strategists who spoke to NBC News said it has been difficult to sled for the president by criticizing his Democratic rival for various reasons.
First, Biden has been discreet during the pandemic, while Trump’s management is reviewed daily, they said. Biden is also viewed more favorably than 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was under investigation during the campaign.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump was the external challenger the last time. Now he is a proprietor with a record.
“In 2016, I had a very clear message and very clear actions,” said Matt Gorman, vice president of the Republican consulting firm Targeted Victory. “He had an uplifting argument about why you should vote for him. He had it in the economy until COVID hit. Now it’s harder to find that, especially now that the focus has been on him.”
He continued: “Biden is barely campaigning, so he is not making many mistakes. Trump was also helped by the fact that Hillary had 20 years of negatives.”
In early May, when Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted that the reelection team was unleashing his “Death Star,” Trump beat Biden by 5 points on the RealClearPolitics poll average. Now Trump follows Biden by 9 points and is behind in key swing states.
The Trump campaign spent more on television commercials claiming that Biden will be a tool of the far left, that he does not have the mental competence to be president, and that he is the wrong person to deal with China.
The campaign has spent at least $ 6.6 million in English and $ 200,000 in Spanish on an ad that imagines a world where police budgets are slashed – the ad it’s spent the most on since May, according to Advertising Analytics. The ad contrasts an unanswered 911 call with images of violence in the protests, and says people will not be safe under Biden with supporters who want to cut police funds.
Recent polls showed that most Americans disagree with Trump about what efforts to dismantle police departments mean and disapprove of his handling of race relations after the death of George Floyd. Biden has said he does not support funding departments, but has said he is in favor of making federal aid conditional on law enforcement agencies in hopes of incentivizing certain police reforms.
The next biggest ad spend is for a place arguing that Biden is mentally “slipping” and “is clearly diminished.”
The campaign has spent at least $ 4.2 million in English and $ 2.3 million in Spanish on that ad since May, according to Advertising Analytics, which also shows that the campaign has spent more than $ 10 million on a variety of ads that say Biden is the wrong option to negotiate with China
However, a May Fox News poll showed that more voters trusted Biden in China than Trump. And a Monmouth poll earlier this month found that more voters felt Biden, 78, has the mental and physical stamina to handle the presidency than he felt about Trump, 74.
The Biden campaign has called many of Trump’s attacks a mere projection on his candidate. In a recent note, deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said that, noting Trump’s attacks on corruption, cognitive ability, and China, among other issues.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said “Trump’s blatant lies and desperate goal-based attacks on Joe Biden only serve to remind the American people of what is at stake in this election and that instability Trump makes it impossible for him to be the leader he needs right now. “
Trump himself bounced off Biden’s messages as he faced a pandemic that has killed more than 136,000 Americans and protests across the country, recently accusing Biden of being against the reopening of schools.
“It is difficult to demonize Joe Biden,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida. “He certainly isn’t lacking in flaws, but throughout his career he has never been considered a villain or a shadowy character. The president almost needs that kind of aluminum foil to succeed.”
Curbelo said Biden’s “gentle and conciliatory” nature makes it difficult for Trump to strike.
“It is difficult to attack vanilla,” he added.
When asked about his most effective line against Biden, Trump campaign spokesman Ken Farnaso told NBC News that the president “has done more in three years than candidate Biden in nearly five decades in Washington” on issues. like taxes, commerce, immigration and economy. .
“‘Promises made, promises kept’ is not just a motto, it is a bold record of success that this president will build on his second term,” he added.
At his rally in Tulsa last month, Trump criticized Biden for not writing all the statements attributed to him, saying that they are instead written by “professional people, excellent English learners.” He also said that Biden “would hand over his country to these gangsters,” citing leftists.
Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Potomac Strategy Group, called the Tulsa rally a “missed opportunity” to get Biden on the job, saying it was “a winding complaint session” in which Trump explained in detail recent descent down a ramp and why he awkwardly drank a glass of water.
“Trump has to raise Biden’s negatives, right?” Mackowiak asked. “If Trump is backwards and Biden is backwards in the picture, Biden is going to win. Now, can he take Biden to where Hillary was? No, probably not. Biden is not as detestable as Hillary, and they don’t have the problem they had with Hillary in the emails and the investigation. “
Liam Donovan, a former Republican aide who now works as a lobbyist, said that while Biden has age-related deficiencies and makes mistakes, those “flaws are largely shared or mitigated by Trump himself.”
Donovan added that it is difficult to rotate Biden as a tool of the radical left, given that the Democratic primary campaign focused largely on whether Biden was not in contact with progressives on climate, racial and economic issues.
“It took a quarter of a century to turn Hillary Clinton into the role of super villain required for Trump to shoot the election moon as a rival,” said Donovan. “And when you’re the headline, it turns out that these things tend to be about you and your record.”
Tim Hogan, communications director for Senator Amy Klobuchar’s 2020 presidential bid, told NBC News that the litany of attacks on Biden “is simply not credible and screams desperation.”
“They have no idea what to do with Joe Biden, so they go through one message a minute and there’s nothing left,” Hogan said. “It is almost impossible to criticize an opponent when people are dying and you are the one leading the failed response to a global pandemic.”
