Trump campaign seeks to blunt Harris momentum

Former President Trump and his campaign are aggressively ramping up their activity ahead of Labor Day in an effort to get his White House bid back on track and blunt Vice President Harris’s momentum.

In a stark contrast to early August, Trump is sometimes holding multiple events a day and traveling consistently to battleground states. His campaign is putting him in front of smaller crowds in an effort to keep him focused on issues like crime and immigration, with mixed results. 

At the same time, Trump is sitting down for podcast interviews, holding larger rallies and posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, to try and break through the news cycle and reach a wider audience.

The campaign has also sought to shore up key alliances that could prove critical in November. GOP allies helped push for a truce between Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), and the campaign secured the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose independent White House bid was pulling votes from Trump in key battleground states.

Two sources said to expect Kennedy, Donald Trump Jr. and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) to hit the trail in the coming weeks, providing the campaign with two additional surrogates who can draw a crowd and media attention. Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, endorsed Trump this week.

Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), are expected to spend significant time in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a campaign official said. The three states make up the so-called Blue Wall that the Harris campaign can ill afford to lose in November.

“As Election Day gets closer and the campaign is in the final sprint, voters can expect to see and hear from President Trump more often as he brings his winning message of making America strong and prosperous again to every corner of our country,” campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

“Americans will not tolerate a candidate for president who hides from the press and behind her anonymous campaign staffers,” she added.

The flood of activity follows criticism from some Republicans that Trump has struggled to adapt to the new state of the race since President Biden ended his candidacy and was replaced atop the ticket by Harris, who has energized Democrats. 

GOP allies have pleaded with Trump to focus more on policy and less on personal attacks, a concept the former president has dismissed. His campaign has scheduled smaller events for Trump intended to focus on a specific issue – the border in Arizona, crime in Michigan, the economy in Pennsylvania – only for Trump to sound unenthused when reading prepared remarks and later veer off script.

Others have argued Trump has failed to successfully define his opponent as he cycles through attacks that Harris is a communist, a far-left prosecutor and a flip-flopper on the issues.

“They need to come up with an effective, sustainable message that they can drive through the fall,” said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns. “He needs to explain what a second term would look like and define what a Harris administration would look like.

“They just haven’t been able to drive a sustained message since Biden dropped out,” Conant added.

Since entering the race, Harris has been on an upward trajectory. She has raked in record-setting amounts of cash, erased Trump’s polling lead and put states like Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina back in play for Democrats.

A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill updated election forecast gives Harris a 55 percent chance of defeating Trump in November, a significant turnaround from when the forecast had Trump with a 56 percent chance of defeating Biden.

Trump campaign pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis wrote in a memo published Saturday that they expected Harris to potentially get another 2-3 percentage point bump following the Democratic National Convention. They asserted that despite that bump, the race remains a toss-up.

“These bumps do not last,” Fabrizio and Tunis wrote. “The other thing to keep in mind is that while the media is going to focus on the national polls, we need to keep our eye on the ball – that is the polling in our target states. Our goal is to get to 270 and winning these states is how we do it.”

One Trump ally argued the campaign is already in a stronger position than it was in just a few weeks ago, when they acknowledged there was something of a scramble to adapt to the new reality of facing Harris.

“I think the last two weeks have been really strong on his end,” the Trump ally said. “It feels like the campaign has found its footing messaging wise, and I think the way they bracketed the DNC was extremely smart.”

A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of polls shows Harris leading Trump in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Trump leads in Georgia and Nevada, and the two are neck-and-neck in Arizona.

While Trump blitzes the campaign trail, arguably the next major inflection point in the race will come on Sept. 10 when the two candidates are scheduled to meet on the debate stage.

Trump said Tuesday in a Truth Social post that he had agreed to attend the debate, hosted by ABC News, after raising the possibility of skipping the event. It’s the only debate that is on the books between the two candidates, though both sides have indicated they would be willing to discuss a second debate once the Sept. 10 event is finished.

“These races are very stagnant with both candidates largely talking to their own bases, except for the debate when the whole country is tuning in,” said Conant, the GOP strategist. “It could dramatically shape the direction of a race.”