Donald Trump’s campaign, which failed in its first attacks against Kamala Harris’ new presidential campaign, will seek a more effective base this week after the vice president transformed an election full of surprises.
The former president has used some of his most trusted political tools – attacking racial identity, creating alternative realities, hurling insults and manipulating the truth. On Sunday, for example, he spread a new false conspiracy theory about the size of the crowd at Harris’ rally in Michigan last week.
But his efforts to take down his new opponent and her policy of ignoring his provocations have highlighted his own weaknesses more than hers, emphasizing how Harris could offer a new option for voters.
When the former president called Harris “dumb” at a rally in Montana on Friday night or falsely claimed last month that she “turned black by accident,” he may have pleased his base voters.
But these types of comments risk alienating women and voters in swing states, as well as reversing gains he has made among minorities he has proudly highlighted for months.
Trump’s campaign was also forced to deny on Saturday a report from The New York Times that he had referred to Harris as a “bitch” in a private conversation while lamenting the momentum of her campaign.
Trump’s wild press conference last week and a weekend of venting also suggest the Republican nominee is far from accepting change in a race that appeared to be headed his way three weeks ago, when optimistic Republicans left their convention. predicting a landslide victory.
But a tour by Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, through swing states generated a euphoria that Democrats haven’t experienced in years. This has infuriated Trump, as his debate victory with President Joe Biden has only led to a new battle — one he is more in danger of losing.
In three weeks, Harris has created a potential turning point — offering voters a breath of optimism after a dark period in modern history with her mantra that Americans “don’t want to go back” to the chaos and acrimony of Trump’s presidency.
Harris’ approach is working — for now — in returning the race to a close contest. Polling averages show she is reversing Biden’s deficits.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday, for example, showed there is no clear leader in the vital swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — a tighter race than when Biden led the ticket.
The survey has no impact on the November result. But it encapsulated the rapid change in the campaign, and Trump’s team felt compelled to release a memo alleging that the polls had “the clear intent and purpose of reducing support” for the former president.
The new Democratic ticket’s success in not only repelling Trump’s initial attacks, but also in using them to expose what Harris sees as extremism, has created an unexpected problem for her team.
Harris’s switch to the Democratic leadership and Biden’s withdrawal from the race three weeks ago have elevated his party to a place that would have seemed impossible a week before its national convention in Chicago. But Trump now faces an energized party, reversing one of his biggest advantages when Biden led the ticket. And newness and hope are proving to be powerful political forces once again.
However, campaigns are never static, and while Harris could benefit from a condensed preparation for November, there are still nearly three months left. Trump remains a formidable political force and a fierce adversary.
And, having rallied his party around him, especially after last month’s assassination attempt, he still stands to benefit from structural factors, including voters’ pessimism about the economy, that would normally help shape the election.
The former president is expected to focus on that issue Wednesday in North Carolina with a speech his campaign says will focus on how “hard-working Americans are suffering because of the administration’s dangerously liberal policies.” Harris-Biden” and prices that are “excruciating”.
Assuming he follows that script, his appearance — in a state Democrats hope to win back — will begin to test whether the focus on fundamental issues will offset the initial wave of enthusiasm for Harris’ candidacy. Trump also announced that he will give an interview this Monday (12) evening to Elon Musk on the automotive and space pioneer’s X platform.
Trump is heavily criticizing the vice president for avoiding exposure to unplanned moments in press conferences or interviews. And she will face growing questions about when to provide more details about the policies she would pursue as president, both at home and abroad.
Harris told reporters on Saturday that she would begin laying out a policy framework on the economy this week. As a sudden drop in the stock market last week showed, it is vulnerable to adverse economic news that could sway Americans who feel insecure.
The vice president seems aware that a new phase of her campaign is approaching after last week’s impressive tour with Walz.
“What we know is that the risks are very high. And we can’t take anything for granted at this point,” she said at a fundraiser in San Francisco on Sunday. “We’ve had a good few weeks, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
Trump is still struggling with his new opponent
Trump sent his vice presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance, to the Sunday talk shows to try to stem the Harris wave. The Ohio Republican painted the vice president and Walz as extreme liberals, advocated tough border policies and accused Harris of complicity in Biden administration policies that have left Americans hostage to high prices.
He pressed the Republican attack on Walz, who alleges, without decisive evidence, that he retired after nearly a quarter century in the Army National Guard to avoid being deployed to Iraq. THE CNN reported that Walz ran for Congress in February 2005 — before his unit was notified that it might be deployed to Iraq.
Vance suggested to CNN that his ticket was running against an undefined opponent, but who bore even more responsibility for the policies of the last four years than Biden.
“What’s different is that we’re running against a different person that many Americans simply don’t know,” Vance said.
“I think we need to remind people that President Trump delivered lower prices, lower inflation, a prosperous and peaceful world, and also a secure border, and Kamala Harris’ policies have delivered exactly the opposite. Now, that was easier to do when Joe Biden was there because people associate Joe Biden with policy.”
However, he was forced to answer for the former president’s often self-destructive comments. In CNNfor example, Vance contorted himself to avoid contradicting Trump’s claim that Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, was not black.
“I believe Kamala Harris is who she says she is,” Vance said. “But I believe, importantly, that President Trump is right that she is a chameleon.”
At CBS, Vance struggled to clarify an impression left by the former president last week that he might be open to restricting the mailing of mifepristone, a widely used abortion medication, to patients. The issue dovetails with Democratic efforts to make Trump pay for rolling back abortion rights nationwide by the Supreme Court, which has the majority he built.
And at ABC, Vance found himself in the difficult position of being asked about Trump’s 2022 hosting of white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who recently launched a racial attack against the Ohio senator’s wife, Usha. Vance described Fuentes as a “total loser” but said “one thing I like about Donald Trump… is that he’ll really talk to anyone.”
Harris presidency is anyone’s guess
The Trump campaign won a concession from the Harris campaign on Saturday about an aspect of Walz’s military background.
A campaign spokesperson told CNN that the governor of Minnesota “said something incorrect” in a 2018 video in which he said he had handled assault weapons “in war.” But trying to use Walz to expose Harris’ decision-making seems unlikely to make the critical difference for voters who must eventually choose between Harris and Trump.
Therefore, an expected debate between Trump and Harris on ABC on September 10 stands as a pivotal new moment in the campaign. Trump insists their first showdown will, in fact, be on Fox a week earlier, but Harris has so far agreed to just one debate.
Early in her vice presidency, Harris stumbled several times in interviews and interactions with the press. And Trump’s team has been trying to provoke her into more unplanned moments.
While she appears to have evolved as a political operative, there is no reason for her advisers to place her in risky environments when her campaign is on the rise, especially ahead of the Chicago convention next week, when the party’s image handlers will have a near monopoly. in the media by seeking to present it to undecided voters during prime time.
But Harris won’t be able to avoid deeper analysis for much longer — and nor should she, considering she’s running for president. She recently told reporters that she is considering giving a big interview by the end of the month.
Her campaign speech is aspirational and in line with democratic orthodoxy, but she speaks in general terms. Since she became the nominee, she has offered no perspective on her thinking in a fragmented world full of growing threats to U.S. power from adversaries like Russia and China.
Her campaign used the time instead to try to tackle political pitfalls, such as releasing an ad positioning her as tough on border issues and positioning Trump as an obstacle to effectively curbing undocumented immigration.
Given Trump’s unpopularity, simply being a younger, more optimistic antidote to a dystopian national vision could be enough for Harris to win the election. But until she emerges in an unchecked public situation, questions about her political skill will hang over her prospects — especially as her 2020 primary campaign quickly unraveled as her political weaknesses became more evident.
But as Trump has shown in recent days, he has not yet figured out a way to respond to the campaign’s suddenly changed circumstances.
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