Democratic strategist David Axelrod said Tuesday that if the presidential election were decided solely on the popularity of the two candidates, former President Trump would lose.
“I think it's going to be a very tough race,” Axelrod told CNN's John Berman. “Certainly, it's clear that people have made up their minds about Donald Trump. If this race is decided by popularity, Trump is going to lose.”
“So their mission is to defeat Kamala Harris,” he added.
Axelrod noted that Harris has a slight advantage in the race because she still has a chance to define herself, while Trump is better known to the American public and would have a harder time redefining himself as a candidate in the race, even if he was forced to do so on the campaign trail.
“She's a relative newcomer to the public, John. In fact, the vice president is known, but she's unknown. She's done a very good job early on filling in information about herself and has made quite a comeback, but this is a tight race.”
Meanwhile, Axelrod added, “Trump has no choice but to sell a new Trump. In fact, he doesn't seem interested in selling a new Trump.”
“One of the problems the campaign has is that he's old Trump and he can't stay on message, so he loves to disparage his opponents, and he does that very eagerly and gleefully, and I expect you'll see that from now until the end of the campaign,” Axelrod said.
He also warned that the election was set to become even more intense as it entered a sprint with two months left, saying: “If you live in any of the six battleground states, I think you should hide your kids from the TV for the next eight weeks.”
According to The Hill/Decision Desk average of Vice President Harris' favorability polls, she has been able to significantly improve her favorability ratings since emerging as the leading Democratic candidate.
Her current net favorability rating is +1.5 percentage points, with 48.8 percent favorable and 47.3 percent unfavorable. Two months ago, Harris' net favorability rating was -18.3 percentage points, with 56.1 percent unfavorable and 37.8 percent unfavorable.
Meanwhile, Trump's net favorability rating was minus 8.8 points, a slight improvement from minus 13.2 points two months ago.
Responding to Axelrod's comments, a Trump campaign spokesman said Trump was “leading” in battleground states because “voters want a return to pro-America policies that actually work, not the extreme policies of Comrade Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Harris' performance in battleground states has improved in recent weeks compared to her numbers when President Biden was still the front-runner, and the race remains close.
