Trump targets hardcore partisans, Harris goes after moderates: Inside the campaign’s final sprint
WASHINGTON — On the battlefield in Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris warned during her campaign that democracy and reproductive rights were at stake next to a former Republican congressman.
I’m going to the same state the day before, Donald Trump fries served at a closed McDonald’s.
As the 2024 presidential contest comes to a close on November 5, Harris and Trump are embracing starkly different strategies to boost the coalitions they need to win. Both make bets that will prove prescient or ill-advised.
Trump’s team has largely abandoned traditional efforts to broaden his message and target moderate voters, focusing instead on galvanizing his base of ardent partisans and challenging low-propensity voters — especially young ones men of all races – with tough talk and events aimed at attracting online attention. .
Harris is leaning toward a more traditional all-of-the-above playbook that focuses on the small group of undecided voters who remain, mainly moderates, college-educated suburbanites and women of all races and education levels. More than Trump, she is going after Republican women who may have supported rival Nikki Haley during this year’s Republican Party primaries and are dissatisfied with the former president.
“They’re all pieces of a very complex puzzle,” David Plouffe, Harris’ senior campaign adviser, said this week. “This would all be easier if you could just focus on one voter cohort. You can’t. And you have to make sure that you know that you’re doing good enough with all of them so that when you add it all up, it adds up to 50%.”
Trump’s team sees it as a much simpler equation.
His aides insist that efforts to maximize turnout from Trump’s hardcore base don’t mean ignoring swing voters, even if he doesn’t tailor another message to reach them.
“I just think there’s a misunderstanding about what motivates those people,” Trump political director James Blair said. “I mean, the fact is that the economy motivates those people. Those people overwhelmingly think they are worse off than they were four years ago… So then the question becomes: who is better equipped to solve it?’
The divergent strategies underline the major differences between the candidates in terms of personality and policy.
Harris, a former California senator who would become the first female president, has pledged to include a Republican in her Cabinet as she prioritizes efforts to protect democracy. reproductive rights and the middle class. Trump, a former president, has vowed to fight for the working class as well. He has also promised a campaign of retaliation against his political enemies with a government full of loyalists.
One point on which both camps agree: the elections will be decided by the voters in no time seven swing statesa political map that has not shifted or narrowed significantly as election day approaches. They are Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
A Harris adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal strategy, described the situation as “still terrifyingly close in all seven cases.”
Trump speaks largely to his loyal Republican base at the expense of moderate voters, especially suburban women. He peppers his rallies with profanity, personal insults against Harris and ominous talk of “domestic enemies.”
He has said repeatedly in the past week that Democrats such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., pose a more serious threat to the United States than China and Russia.
Trump has also rejected recent opportunities to speak to more traditional audiences, declining an interview with CBS’ popular “60 Minutes” and refusing to debate Harris for a second time unless moderated by Fox News. home to some of his favorite conservative anchors. .
Instead, his campaign is planning appearances on podcasts and online shows aimed at young men — especially Hispanic and working-class black men, who tend to vote less frequently and prefer Democrats.
He has attended sporting events including mixed martial arts fights and football matchesputting him in front of an audience that might not normally engage with traditional media.
Josh Rouse, a 28-year-old black man and registered Republican, said he only recently became drawn to politics. He didn’t vote in 2016, but voted for Trump in 2020.
“I think it’s important to remember that we’re all human, regardless of whether you’re white or black,” said Rouse, who works as a roofer and attended Trump’s rally in Greenville, North Carolina, this week. “It doesn’t matter who you are. He speaks to all of us.”
Trump’s team has also created viral moments in non-political settings, such as his visit to McDonald’s on Sunday, part of an extensive campaign to question Harris’ work history at the fast-food franchise. Trump also went to Coachella, California, and will host a rally there Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday — both in heavily Democratic states, but where related media attention and online content would certainly reach swing-state voters.
Trump has maintained an aggressive schedule. He plans to visit every battleground state except Wisconsin this week.
Backed by an avalanche of campaign cash, Harris is organizing personal events but also launching an extensive campaign door knock operationhyper-targeted online advertising and a carefully designed media strategy to reach specific voting blocs.
Harris’ team believes that about 10% of voters in battleground states are still persuadable, either because they are truly undecided or because their support for Trump is weak. The campaign promises to continue to sway such voters until the final minutes of in-person voting.
Her team sees the potential for significant growth among Republican, college-educated suburban women alienated by Trump’s extreme rhetoric. Even small shifts in swing states can have enormous electoral consequences.
The Harris campaign quickly produced digital ads last week highlighting Trump’s description of the January 6, 2021 insurrection as “a day of love.” And Harris spent most of Monday campaigning in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, along with Liz Cheney, a Republican House leader during Trump’s presidency who turned sharply against him after Jan. 6.
Harris will visit Houston on Friday for an event with women affected by the state’s ban on all abortions, which went into effect after the Supreme Court, including three Trump-nominated justices, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. I was going there after spending time in Georgia, where abortions were banned after six weeks of pregnancy.
Nicolette Milholin, 45, of Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, said she considered herself politically independent until Trump was elected in 2016.
“For me, democracy is at stake,” Milholin said this week at a Harris event in Chester County, Pennsylvania. “We have a party built for a family and a dynasty. And then here we have a party, represented by Kamala Harris, that was built for our country.”
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Nations reported from New York. Colvin reported from Palm Beach, Florida. AP writers Colleen Long in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and Gary Robertson in Greenville, North Carolina, contributed to this report.