The Trump campaign is shifting its strategy to focus on ramping up the former president’s schedule, honing his debate skills, and cultivating a new ground-game tied to early voting states in the lead-up to November. Trump’s schedule will include several events each week, if not daily, with plans to regularly visit two states in a day. The campaign is aiming to have Trump appear more frequently in battleground states and hold smaller, more intimate events alongside larger rallies to better focus their candidate. Additionally, Trump is preparing for his upcoming debate with Vice President Kamala Harris by engaging in policy discussions and seeking advice from former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to understand Harris’ debate style.
The increased pace of Trump’s campaign activity follows the Democratic National Convention and is seen as an all-out sprint to November. The campaign is beefing up its political operation by adding new advisers, such as Corey Lewandowski, to assist in the approach. Trump plans to focus on battlegrounds where mail-in ballots will soon go out and early voting locations will open first, including key states like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Florida. Surrogates will be deployed to hold get-out-the-vote events in these states as well.
Despite efforts to focus on policy over personal attacks, Trump’s innate tendency to veer off script and air grievances remains a challenge for the campaign. During recent events, Trump polled the crowd on whether they preferred insults or policy discussions and ended up mocking his own team for trying to keep the focus on policy. However, the active period on the campaign trail marked by a week of events represents a significant shift from Trump’s lighter campaign calendar earlier in the year, which was sufficient when his opponent was an unpopular incumbent but required adjustment against a more engaging ticket with Harris and Governor Walz.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, is also expected to take on a more vigorous schedule in the coming weeks, with a particular focus on battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Vance’s background in southwestern Ohio is seen as appealing to Rust Belt voters, and he is expected to continue efforts to connect the opioid epidemic to immigration. Despite a shaky start marked by controversial remarks, Trump has expressed satisfaction with Vance’s performance on the trail, referring to him as a “political athlete” and urging him to engage with voters and media frequently through various platforms such as Sunday morning news shows and podcasts targeting younger audiences.
