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It’s been ten long weeks since Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. When the Republican presidential candidate rose from the stage, bloodied, fist raised, yelling “Fight” to his supporters, he seemed invincible.
Not only had he dodged death, he looked set for victory come November. “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency,” one senior House Democrat told Axios just hours after the assassination attempt.
A lot has changed since then—most importantly Trump’s opponent—and rather than holding an unassailable lead, he is in the middle of a dogfight for the White House. What happened? Part of the story is of a Democratic Party pulling itself together, ditching its senescent candidate, and falling into line behind Kamala Harris. But the other part concerns Donald Trump himself, and the campaign he has chosen to run.
As the candidates now sprint toward Election Day, the Trump campaign has become a chaotic operation that could bungle the election that was his to lose.
Consider the latest Gallup data. Among the ten key indicators ahead of the 2024 presidential election, nine of them—including voters’ views on the economy—show Trump and the Republicans should have the upper hand.
And yet the presidential race is a toss-up. Is this because Harris, who everyone thought was a major liability until five minutes ago, is a brilliant campaigner? Nope. Is it because her campaign is run by genius political strategists? Likely not, given they’re the same people who formerly ran Biden’s reelection bid. Is it because she is getting a very easy ride from the media? Okay, that may be part of it. With only a handful of interviews and some help from a sympathetic press corps, Harris has shed her image as the most unpopular vice president in recent history and rebranded as a viable candidate.
But more to the point, Trump has allowed her to rebrand, offering no consistent critique of the country’s eminently critique-able vice president. He flopped so badly in his first debate with her he is now running scared from a rematch.
Instead of working hard to convince voters Harris is unfit for the top job, the Trump campaign has wasted too much time on two things: stupid stuff and bad stuff.
First, the stupid. On Saturday, Trump posted a video on Truth Social, hawking silver “Trump Coins.” (This “true symbol of American greatness” can be yours for just $100.) Last week he paid a visit to a bar in Greenwich Village, where he bought a burger with cryptocurrency (all part of a Trumpworld crypto push). None of this screams “I am laser-focused on delivering victory in November.”
Second, the bad. Hanging out with nutso racist troll Laura Loomer. Preemptively blaming the Jews if he loses in November. Indulging an unproven, sinister fantasy about pet-eating Haitian migrants in Ohio. Greenlighting J.D. Vance’s onstage appearance with Tucker Carlson last Saturday—just weeks after Carlson interviewed a Nazi apologist who he called the “best and most honest popular historian working in the United States today.”
All of this—the stupid and the bad—hurts Trump’s reelection chances. (Though at least the Trump campaign was smart enough to snub Mark Robinson from a recent North Carolina rally after reports revealed the gubernatorial candidate calls himself a “black Nazi” on porn websites.)
All of this is to say: We are a long way from Butler, Pennsylvania. In the aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt, people around the former president described him as a changed man. Trump said he had ripped up his planned speech for the RNC in place of a new address emphasizing unity. He had the chance to do more than that: to rise above partisanship and lawfare and political violence and occupy the center ground of American politics with a pitch focused on the economy and immigration, all while hammering Harris for her radical past positions and the fact she was likely part of the Biden cover-up, pretending he was competent enough to run for reelection.
That’s a compelling pitch for the normie voters who decide elections. It’s one Trump was well-positioned to make. But he has so far proven himself either unwilling or unable to do so. And now here he is: stuck in a coin-flip race he should be winning by a mile.
Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman, and read his piece, “Truth and Lies on the Campaign Trail.”
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