For about three weeks this summer, former President Donald Trump seemed on track to win a second term.
But then President Biden withdrew, and while the race shifted instantly, Trump’s message and campaign strategy did not shift with it, which led Vice President Kamala Harris to scale back her campaign and even take a lead in some polls.
The Vice President is now Lead He has won five of the last seven national polls and closed the gap in most battleground states, according to Bloomberg/Morning Consult swing state tracking. vote.
As a veteran Democratic strategist who understands well the challenges our party faces in articulating a compelling messaging strategy, it is becoming increasingly clear that if Donald Trump wants to win, his campaign will need to make significant changes.
The first change must be to find a way to stay focused on the issues and draw a clear contrast between her own record and the policies she says she will pursue and those of the Biden-Harris Administration.
In other words, Trump would benefit from realizing that discipline and consistent messaging are essential in a suddenly competitive race.
Of course, this means refraining from commenting on Kamala Harris’ race. Instead, Trump should focus his attacks on the Biden administration’s record on key issues like the economy, inflation, immigration and crime.
Indeed, on the economy, the most important issue yet, Trump should clearly and simply compare his own plan, which includes cutting corporate taxes to promote jobs, eliminating Social Security and gratuity taxes, and extending the 2017 personal income tax cuts, with Harris’ plan.supportThe largest tax increase proposed in recent years.
Trump could also have Harris defend the historic rise in inflation and the cost of living that has occurred under the Biden-Harris administration, something she would have a particularly hard time doing since 60% of voters are unhappy with the administration’s handling of inflation, according to a recent Economist YouGov poll. vote.
Conversely, by a two-to-one ratio (40 percent to 21 percent), voters believe that a Trump win would be better off economically than a Harris win, according to CNBC’s All-America Economy. investigation.
Similarly, a recent Marquette University poll found that voters, by a 12-point margin (49 percent to 37 percent), believe Trump can handle the economy better than Harris.vote.
This includes comparing Trump’s support for domestic energy production with Harris’s. support I support the Green New Deal and other unpopular inflationary policies.
Similarly, on issues like immigration and crime, Trump should garner broad support for his policies and contrast them with what voters perceive as the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.
On immigration, Trump leads Harris by 18 points (53 percent to 35 percent) when it comes to who voters trust to handle immigration and the southern border, according to Marquette University.
Immigration in particular presents a big opportunity for Trump, as Harris’ role as Biden’s pick for “border secretary” makes it easier to link her to the chaos on the southern border.
Harris’ criminal pastsupportThe movement to defund the police gives Trump a clear opportunity to draw a favorable contrast.
More than eight in 10 Americans (84%) support President Trump’s plans to fight the crime epidemic, including 86% of independents, according to the Harvard Harris Research Center.voteMeanwhile, only 39 percent of Americans support the Biden administration’s approach to crime.
Certainly, it shouldn’t be difficult to tie Harris to unpopular policies on key issues for the Biden administration, but Trump is doing everything he can to make that much harder.
Harris’ racial attacks and preoccupation with grievance politics;fightPopular Republican Governors and Social MediaChatRepublicans have blocked Harris from successfully aligning with the Biden administration’s record, lack of policy agenda and progressive thinking.
So, staying true to her core, Harris will be facing her first real test in this election: telling Americans what she stands for, her vision for the next four or eight years, and how she plans to address the challenges facing the country.
Harris’ campaignWebsiteShe hasn’t laid out any policy positions, but the longer President Trump lets her get away with straying from an issue-based message, the less she has to articulate a comprehensive policy agenda.
A refined messaging strategy is the most important change, but it’s not the only one: To win in battleground states, Trump will need to work harder to appeal to disaffected soft Republicans and independents.
So far, Trump doesn’t appear to have done himself any favors in this regard by choosing Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a populist like Trump, whose approval rating is just 24 percent, according to ABC/Ipsos. vote.
Vance may have been the result of the Trump campaign becoming overconfident about the prospects of facing a weakened Biden, but that no longer applies, so Trump needs a surrogate who can convince suburban women and Republican-leaning independents that he’s the best choice.
Unfortunately, the two top Republicans who fit that description, Nikki Haley and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, have both been targets of Trump’s ire recently and have shown only lukewarm enthusiasm for his candidacy.
This doesn’t mean that Trump is out of the race — far from it. With the election expected to be very close and nearly 90 days left until Americans vote, virtually anything could happen that would work in either candidate’s favor.
But Trump clearly must make changes if he wants to avoid a repeat of his 2020 defeat, appealing to moderate voters beyond his loyal MAGA base and offering a vision for a second term based on practical solutions to the problems facing the country.
Douglas E. Shawn is a political consultant and founder and partner of Shawn Cooperman Research. His latest book is “The end of democracy? The rise of Russia and China and the decline of the United States.“
