Since the Republican National Convention ended on July 18, former President Trump has held five campaign rallies.
This is the number of meetings Vice President Harris will host this week alone.
Democrats and Harris campaign staff have reveled in the difference in schedules, using it to stoke questions about Trump’s stamina and provoke him with the Harris campaign’s large, enthusiastic crowds.
That’s a dramatic change from Biden’s early days as a presidential candidate, when he campaigned about once a week. Some Republicans have suggested that Trump needs to increase his presence in battleground states to keep up with the race, but Trump resents the idea that he’s operating under a low profile.
“I think the obvious question is why Trump doesn’t do more events,” said a Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “He’s not getting any younger. He needs to be more out there.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House communications director before becoming a critic of Trump, was more blunt.
“Kamala Harris has a lot more going for her than President Trump,” she said this week.
Vice President Harris is visiting Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona this week, and is scheduled to visit Nevada by the end of the week. She postponed visits to North Carolina and Georgia due to Tropical Storm Debby.
While Harris’ campaign is hustling through battleground states that will determine the outcome of the November election, Trump has just one campaign event this week: a Friday night rally in Montana, a state that Trump won by 16 percentage points in 2020 and which is home to a fierce Senate election this fall.
“Not feeling great, @realdonaldtrump?” the Harris campaign posted to X, along with a photo of each candidate’s schedule for the week.
At a press conference Thursday, Trump laughed off a question about the lack of public campaign activity this week.
“That’s a stupid question,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I’m leading by a large margin and I’m getting their conventions through,” Trump said of his general absence from battleground states, which don’t start until Aug. 19. “And I’m focused on the campaign.”
Trump said his campaign ads, radio and television interviews and other media activity were evidence of his work.
Asked about criticism of Harris’ light campaign schedule, a Trump campaign spokesman pointed to a lack of media engagement and policy platforms.
“Eighteen days after Kamala was sworn in as the Democratic nominee, she has not answered a single question from the media, her campaign website does not list a single policy proposal, and she has rejected President Trump’s challenge to a debate on September 4,” Trump national spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in a statement. “Kamala is desperately trying to distance herself from her dangerous liberal record.”
While Trump has mostly stayed in Florida this week, his campaign has had his running mate, Harris, shadow him as he tours battleground states. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has held events in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, answering reporters’ questions in small venues and attacking the record of the vice president and his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
Trump himself has been giving a series of interviews in an attempt to wrestle some of the spotlight back from the Harris campaign, including an interview with online streamer Adyn Roth on Monday and a phone-in appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. Trump will hold a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday and hinted at a conversation he plans to have with his supporter, billionaire Elon Musk, on Monday.
With three months to go until Election Day, Trump’s pace of attending roughly one rally per week is significantly slower than his nine rallies during the 2016 election cycle. The first week of August. Though the 2020 election campaign was affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Trump was back to regular schedules of at least three rallies a week by September.
“I think Trump is continuing the campaign cadence he established six months ago,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on the presidential campaign. “That worked well until a few weeks ago. The cadence of one or two events a week worked well when he was trying to make this campaign a referendum on Biden.”
This is uncharted territory for Trump, who is accustomed to dominating headlines and was thought to be on pace to retake the White House in his November election against Biden.
Harris has garnered media attention in recent days, drawing the largest crowds at any Democratic event this election season.
Polls remain tight, and Harris is expected to gain further ground at this month’s convention. The Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of national polls shows the two candidates roughly neck and neck, with each trailing by less than 3 percentage points in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“I think Trump’s lethargic response to Kamala Harris has people forgetting that there was an element of his presidency and past campaigns where he would get into a doom spiral when things didn’t go his way,” said Jesse Lee, a former Biden administration official.
“Trump was comfortable when he was sure he was going to win. I think he was sure for a year that he was going to beat Biden,” Lee said. “So he’s never been under pressure to know if he was going to lose.”
