Trump will campaign across the country this week as he struggles to adjust to Harris
BEDMINSTER, NJ — As Democrats begin their convention in Chicago, Donald Trump The campaign is trying to get back on its feet after weeks of struggling to adjust to the vice president Kamala Harris at the top of the counter-evidence.
Trump will try to undermine the Democratic celebration with a jam-packed schedule of daily events in swing states tied to issues Republicans believe give them an edge. It’s his busiest campaign week since the winter, when he faced challengers in the Republican primaries.
But when Trump has held events billed as policy addresses during the campaign, they have often resembled his usual rambling rally speeches. And as has been the case throughout his political career, Trump has undermined his own message with outbursts and attacks that drown out everything else.
The former president and Republican candidate has at times denied that Harris, and not the president, Joe Bidenis now her rival. He has launched deeply personal attacks, lied about her audience by claiming images of them were generated by AI, and played with racist tropes by questioning her racial identity as she runs to become the country’s first black woman and first South Asian president.
The outbursts have alarmed allies, who worry that Trump is hurting his chances in what they see as a very winnable race. Privately and publicly, they have urged him to focus on policy rather than personality and to do more to broaden his appeal among swing voters who have grown increasingly nervous about Harris’s competitiveness.
“If you have a policy debate for the president, he wins,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Donald Trump, the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.”
Trump will appear in Pennsylvania on Monday to talk about the economy and energy, in Michigan on Tuesday to talk about crime and safety, and in North Carolina on Wednesday to talk about national security in a joint appearance with his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. On Thursday, he will travel to the southwest border in Arizona to talk about immigration before heading to Arizona and Nevada on Friday.
Graham said he wanted Trump to focus on what he would do about the economy and the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing that “policy is the key to the White House.” Some people at his rallies agreed with that advice.
“He needs to stop talking about Biden, except Harris who is riding on those policies,” said Kory Jeno, a 53-year-old from Swannanoa, North Carolina, who was waiting to see Trump speak last week in nearby Asheville. “He needs to keep the conversation on the issues and what he’s doing for Americans instead of digressing and just bashing her and stuff like that.”
The challenge for Republicans was on display last Thursday, when Trump invited reporters to his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, to talk about the economy. Standing before an assortment of grocery store items, Trump largely stuck to his intended message for the first half hour, talking about rising prices and blaming Biden and Harris for implementing policies he blamed for rising inflation.
He was unusually diplomatic, including in his response to criticism from former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who said last week that Trump would be better off spending his time appealing to suburban women, college-educated voters, independents, moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats rather than his base.
“I want this campaign to win. But this campaign is not going to win by talking about crowd size. It’s not going to win by talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win by talking about whether she’s stupid,” Haley said.
But Trump did not heed Haley’s advice when asked separately whether he should run a more disciplined campaign and move away from personal attacks on Harris.
“I’m angry with her,” he said. “I think I have a right to make personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”
He gave Democrats fresh fodder later that night at an event with Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is expected to spend tens of millions of dollars to help Trump regain the White House. Describing how he was giving her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, he said it was “far superior” to the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration.
“Everybody who gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers, they’re either in really bad shape because they’ve been hit by so many bullets, or they’re dead,” Trump told an audience. “She’s getting it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman.”
The comment was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign and by some veterans as disrespectful to military personnel, just as Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, have attempted to cast doubt on the record of Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in the National Guard.
On Saturday, at a meeting in PennsylvaniaTrump repeatedly deviated from a message focused on the economy to personal attacks on Harris, including a statement that he is “much better looking” than she is.
Trump’s troubles follow an extraordinary period that has completely upended the campaign.
Just a month ago, Republicans gathered at their national convention in Milwaukee were excited about their chances. Trump had just survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania and was being hailed by his most ardent supporters as a messiah-like figure sent by God to save the nation.
Biden, his opponent, faced mounting pressure from within his party to withdraw from the race after a disastrous debate in which he at times struggled to finish sentences. His campaign signaled it would withdraw from Sun Belt states such as Arizona and Georgia, which it took from Trump four years ago.
But just three days after the convention ended, Biden ended his bid and endorsed Harris, who quickly rallied the party behind her. Some polls show Harris outperforming Biden in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, though most still suggest a close race.
“We just saw a rocket take off with Kamala Harris,” Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio said during a briefing with reporters earlier this month, pointing to a media frenzy that, for a rare moment, has eclipsed the attention Trump is generating.
The former president’s advisers remain optimistic about his chances. They argue that Harris and the Democrats are in a fleeting moment of excitement with their new nominee, and are confident that voters will sour on the vice president as they learn more about her past comments and positions.
They plan to portray her as a liberal extremist in the final stages of the race and compare the candidates’ different approaches to the economy, crime and immigration.
“President Trump continues to talk about skyrocketing inflation that has crushed American families, an outrageous border that threatens every community, and rampant crime while Kamala Harris continues to hide from the press,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, adding that Trump “will be scouring battlegrounds in every state across the country to prosecute the case against a weak, failed, and dangerously liberal Kamala Harris.”
In Asheville, North Carolina, where Trump used an event billed as a major economic speech to make digs at Harris’ laugh and Biden’s son Hunter, 75-year-old Mary Ray said Trump “needs to stop with the personal attacks.”
When asked if she was referring to Trump’s most incendiary comments — calling Harris a “mean woman” and questioning the way she discusses her biracial heritage — Ray frowned and pursed her lips.
“It hurts him with other voters,” Ray said.
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Associated Press journalists Michelle L. Price in New York and Bill Barrow in Asheville, North Carolina, contributed to this report.