Trump faces pressure to reset campaign after
Tulsa rally caps gloomy week
President heads to Arizona for border-wall event in
what amounts to a relaunch of a relaunch
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Published
onTue 23 Jun 2020 07.30 BST
Donald
Trump flies to Arizona on Tuesday under pressure to change course in his
re-election bid after a dismal week culminated in the debacle of thousands of
empty seats at a campaign rally.
The US
president was reportedly angry on Saturday when his first rally in three
months, a defiant gamble amid the coronavirus pandemic intended as a daunting
show of force, backfired with poor attendance in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Republican
heartland.
In what
amounts to a relaunch of a relaunch, Trump now travels to Arizona, a
battleground state, to embrace his most comfortable signature issue with an
event marking the 200th mile of his wall on the US-Mexico border (most of the
construction has in fact replaced existing barriers).
The
president will then speak at a “Students for Trump” event in Phoenix. Despite
soaring cases of coronavirus in Arizona, his campaign team will be hoping for
an enthusiastic turnout to get back on track. It is not known when Trump will
hold his next full rally.
Why was
Donald Trump's 'comeback' rally in Tulsa, the site of a massacre?
Read more
Trump
trails his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in numerous polls, both nationally and
in competitive states such as Arizona, in some cases by double digits.
Observers argue that Tulsa was a warning that he needs to reset, not least
because of the health risks of big indoor rallies - but there appears to be
little chance of him heeding advice.
“From what
I’ve been told, Trump just insists on these rallies and he wants more and not
fewer compared to 2016 because he’s got all of the trappings of office and he
can fly Air Force One low so people can be awed and all the rest of it,” said
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of
Virginia.
“Obviously,
he didn’t calculate properly for the pandemic and other factors. He thinks they
can correct it and go on. He wants one every couple of weeks or more
frequently. He didn’t learn a thing. His campaign staff would gladly give them
up, along with the tweets, if they could. But they can’t.”
Trump aides
claimed that more than a million people had requested tickets for the Tulsa
rally. The city fire marshal’s office reported a crowd of just less than 6,200
in the 19,000-seat venue, with few wearing face masks; eight members of the
campaign’s advance team have tested positive for Covid-19.
The
president’’s meandering one-hour-41-minute speech may come to be seen as
exhibit A of a campaign struggling for direction and at risk of defeat in
November. He was criticised for taking a scattergun approach to Biden, a
reflection of how his team’s various and shifting lines of attack on the former
vice-president have failed to gain traction.
The remarks
also defended Confederate statues and indulged racist terms such as “Kung flu”
while failing to mention Black Lives Matter or George Floyd, the African
American man killed last month by police in Minneapolis whose death sparked
nationwide protests. Polls suggest Trump’s unwillingness to strike a chord of
national unity alienates voters of colour, suburban women and independents.
Frank
Luntz, a pollster and Republican consultant, said: “He uses words that make his
re-election less likely. Calling his supporters ‘warriors’ appeals to his
supporters, but nobody else. Americans are not looking for a warrior. They are
looking for empathy and understanding and compassion. If you’re looking for a
warrior, you’ve already decided you want Donald Trump. If you’re looking for
social justice, you’ve already decided you’re voting for Joe Biden.
“There’s
only 6% of the American people that are truly undecided; 94% have made up their
minds. That means your words and your phrases have to be precise. He keeps
talking about law and order. The public wants public safety. He talks about
draining the swamp. The public wants a more efficient, more effective and more
accountable government. The words that he’s using are actually making his case
more difficult because they don’t resonate with that 6%.”
The White
House and the Trump campaign, however, denied media reports that Trump had
rebuked his staff or that campaign manager Brad Parscale was skating on thin
ice after overpromising and underdelivering so spectacularly.
Kayleigh
McEnany, the White House press secretary, insisted on Monday: “The President was
very pleased with the rally. I was with him. And I just have to say these media
reports that he was somehow furious on the plane – there is no grounding in
fact to that.”
She added:
“A political pundit wrote to him that it was one of the all-time great speeches
they’d ever heard … The speech made his message so clear and compelling that no
one could possibly have missed it. And it was so great to be out of the swamp
and in the country. And those comments are how the president feels, too.”
Tim
Murtaugh, the campaign’s director of communications, said: “President Trump is
eager to keep hitting the campaign trail and holding more rallies to speak
directly to the American people ... There was a massive media push to crush the
Trump rally, and still 12,000 people bravely showed up.
“This is
approximately 11,990 more people than attended the last Biden event. The
enthusiasm is with President Trump. As of Monday morning, more than 11.3
million people had watched the President’s speech on our digital platforms.
There is an enthusiasm gap – it is real and it is wide.”
But with
Trump under fire for boasting at the rally that he told staff to slow virus
testing, Tuesday’s stop in Arizona will not be straightforward. The state’s
positive test rate is at a seven-day average of more than 20%, the highest in
the country.
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