IMAGENS DE OVOODOCORVO
Donald
Trump knows he's losing.
2020
ELECTIONS
Trump admits it: He's losing
Amid a mountain of bad polling and stark warnings from
allies, the president has acknowledged his reelection woes to allies.
In the week since his Tulsa rally, President Donald
Trump has grudgingly conceded that he’s behind, according to three people who
are familiar with his thinking.
By ALEX
ISENSTADT
06/27/2020
10:13 PM EDT
Donald
Trump knows he's losing.
The
president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple
people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings
from some of his staunchest allies that he's on course to be a one-term
president.
Trump has
endured what aides describe as the worst stretch of his presidency, marred by
widespread criticism over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and
nationwide racial unrest. His rally in Oklahoma last weekend, his first since
March, turned out to be an embarrassment when he failed to fill the arena.
What should
have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday
horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a
simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the
normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might
lose when he said that Joe Biden is “gonna be your president because some
people don't love me, maybe."
In the
hours after the interview aired, questions swirled within his inner circle
about whether his heart was truly in it when it comes to seeking reelection.
Trump has
time to rebound, and the political environment could improve for him. But
interviews with more than a half-dozen people close to the president depicted a
reelection effort badly in need of direction — and an unfocused candidate who
repeatedly undermines himself.
“Under the
current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one the of the worst
electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically
for an incumbent president,” said former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg,
who remains a supporter.
Nunberg
pointed to national polls released by CNBC and New York Times/Siena over the
past week showing Trump receiving below 40 percent against Biden.
If Trump's
numbers against erode to 35 percentage points over the next two weeks, Nunberg
added, “He’s going to be facing realistically a 400-plus electoral vote loss
and the president would need to strongly reconsider whether he wants to
continue to run as the Republican presidential nominee.”
Behind the
scenes, Trump and his team are taking steps to correct course. In the week
since his Tulsa rally, the president has grudgingly conceded that he’s behind,
according to three people who are familiar with his thinking. Trump, who vented
for days about the event, is starting to take a more hands-on role in the
campaign and has expressed openness to adding more people to the team. He has
also held meetings recently focusing on his efforts in individual battleground
states.
Trump's
son-in-law Jared Kushner, who effectively oversees the campaign from the White
House, is expected to play an even more active role.
Trump
campaign manager Brad Parscale was blamed internally for the Tulsa rally
failure. Some people complained about him trumpeting that 1 million people had
requested tickets, a boast that fell flat when thousands of seats sat empty
during Trump's speech.
Parscale
has been a target of some Trump allies who argue the campaign is lacking a
coherent strategy and direction. But people close to the president insist that
Parscale's job is safe for now. Trump, who visited the campaign’s Arlington,
Virginia headquarters a few months ago, has told people he came away impressed
with the sophistication of the organization.
Parscale,
whose background is as a digital strategist, has received some reinforcements
in recent weeks. Longtime Trump adviser Bill Stepien was given added
responsibilities in the campaign, including working with political director
Chris Carr and the Republican National Committee on voter turnout. And Jason
Miller, a veteran of the 2016 campaign, was brought back to serve as a chief
political strategist, a position that had been unfilled.
But those
internal moves have done little to calm Republican jitters about the
president's personal performance. Fox News host and Trump favorite Tucker
Carlson issued a blunt warning on his show this week that the president “could
well lose this election.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, another close
Trump ally, told reporters that the president needs to make the race “more about
policy and less about your personality.”
Trump's
team insists the president’s numbers are bound to improve as he steps up his
public events and intensifies his attacks on Biden. People involved in the
campaign say they have settled on two main avenues to go after the former vice
president: That he’s beholden to liberals who want to do away with law and
order, and that he’s a consummate Washington insider.
The
campaign has begun a massive TV ad campaign going after the 77-year-old former
vice president, including over his mental capacity and his nearly five-decade
political career. Hoping to make inroads with African-American voters, Trump's
campaign is running ads slamming Biden over his central role in the 1994 crime
bill.
The
commercials are airing in an array of states including Georgia, a traditionally
red state where Trump suddenly finds himself in a fight. The cash-flush
campaign is expected to remain on the TV airwaves in a host of key states
through the election.
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Veterans of
Trump’s first presidential campaign liken their current predicament to the
nightmarish summer of 2016, when he was buffeted by an array of self-inflicted
scandals — from his criticism of a Gold Star family to his attack on a federal
judge of Mexican ancestry.
Then as
now, Trump trailed badly.
“There was
similar fretting in 2016 and if it had been accurate, Hillary Clinton would be
in the White House right now. Joe Biden is the weakest Democrat candidate in a
generation and we are defining him that way,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim
Murtaugh. “We are four months from Election Day and in the end it will be a
clear choice between President Trump’s incredible record of achievement and Joe
Biden’s half-century of failure in Washington, D.C.”
Still,
Trump advisers acknowledge that tearing down Biden will require a level of
discipline he isn’t demonstrating. They have pleaded with Trump — who has used
his Twitter account to vilify critics from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to former
National Security Adviser John Bolton — to stop focusing on slights that mean
little to voters.
Biden's
low-profile during the pandemic has made it that much harder for Trump to land
a punch, his advisers said.
But
Republicans say he and his campaign need to figure out something soon.
“The key
factor has been that Biden has been able to stay out of the race,” said David
McIntosh, the president of the pro-Trump Club for Growth. “Republicans have to
start defining Biden and put resources and effort and consistent messaging
behind it.”
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