With both major political parties’ national nominating conventions now concluded, the 2024 presidential election is in its final sprint, with former President Donald Trump gaining momentum.
As the Democratic Party held its convention in Chicago last week, President Trump visited five of the seven key battleground states that could determine whether he or Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election.
“We are very happy to go into specific communities and deliver specific messages. Donald Trump did exactly that last week when he held a massive rally in Arizona, and we’ll be doing the same this week,” Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told Fox News.
Trump, Harris prepare for final stretch of 2024 showdown
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Toro e la Capra, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julia Nickinson)
President Trump is scheduled to visit Detroit on Monday afternoon to speak at the United States National Guard Association’s 146th Annual Meeting and Exposition.
Later in the week, Mr. Trump will return to campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, will campaign in Michigan on Tuesday.
These three states make up the Democratic Party’s Blue Wall, which the party reliably won in presidential elections for 25 years until 2016, when Trump narrowly won all three states and took the White House.
However, four years later in 2020, President Biden narrowly won back all three electoral districts, defeating President Trump and winning the presidency.
Harris vows to be ‘all-American president,’ criticizes Trump
Harris has been riding a wave of energy and enthusiasm in both polls and fundraising since replacing Biden as the top 2024 Democratic candidate five weeks ago.
Harris’ campaign announced on Sunday that the vice president has raised more than $540 million since replacing Biden as the top Democratic candidate for 2024.
Of that total, $82 million came “thanks to a surge in grassroots donations” at last week’s convention, he said, and noted that the hour following Harris’ acceptance speech on Thursday night was her most fundraising hour since becoming a presidential candidate.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris appears on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin, File)
For now, Trump’s political team expects that momentum to continue following last week’s Democratic National Nominating Convention.
“We expect Harris’ approval ratings to see another slight (if temporary) uptick following the Democratic National Convention, as is the case after most party conventions,” Trump campaign pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis wrote in a strategy memo last weekend.
See the latest Fox News poll for the 2024 election here
In addition to increasing his campaign stops, Trump is gearing up to give more media interviews and has been posting regularly on X after a lengthy absence.
And while Trump will still hold large rallies, as he did in Arizona, campaign officials have told Fox News they expect him to attend more smaller events and meet-and-greets focused on the economy and the border, two key issues where Harris is seen as weak.
The campaign also plans to tap Democratic-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a key surrogate for Trump.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, shakes hands with Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.
Kennedy, a longtime environmental activist and known vaccine skeptic who is the scion of one of America’s most famous political dynasties, made a campaign stop on Friday to endorse Trump and later teamed up with the former president at a rally in Arizona.
Click here to get the FOX News app
“Bobby’s going to be on the campaign trail,” Lewandowski said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday. “He’s going to have an opportunity now to tell the American people exactly what he witnessed firsthand, what he saw firsthand.”
“He’s now,” Lewandowski said. [Kennedy] “This will be a unique opportunity for the Trump campaign to get more people to join us on our path to victory.”
But Trump won’t be campaigning alone this week.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will begin a bus tour of battleground state Georgia on Wednesday, and the vice president will hold a rally in Savannah on Thursday night.
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
