Another day ending in “y” means another poll showing Kamala’s momentum continuing to build. The new Emerson poll has her up nationally 50-46%. Trump’s response is to repeat personal attacks on his opponents and spew out absurd and undeliverable promises that no one believes…basically because he has no credibility outside of the two-digit IQ MAGA crowd.
Yesterday Reese Gorman reported that Republicans in Congress are very worried about Trump’s inability to stay on message. One “warned that Trump ‘needs to get back on message and start talking about policy differences. If he doesn’t do this, I think he will lose and probably cost Republicans the House and Senate.” Kooks like Marjorie Traitor Greene in gerrymandered districts with immense Republican PVIs aren’t worried but Republicans in swing districts— and Republicans concerned about hanging onto their majority— are more than just concerned.
Another member told Gorman that Trump is “rattled and needs to get on message. Life’s too hard for too many; the border was left open; and everyone is paying too much for too little.” Trump spending his time attacking Brian Kemp, isn’t going help anyone’s chances in November. “If he displayed self-discipline and impulse control, he’d win,” a member who incorrectly believes the GOP is on the right side of issues. “The issues favor us. He’s been unable to focus on the issues and is behind. This is his race to lose, and he’s shooting himself in the foot. There’s some Trump fatigue too, and if he’d focus on issues and get off the personality attacks, he’d connect more with voters.”
And another GOP congressman was even more clear-eyed.
“Let’s be real: He lost in ’20,” this congressman told NOTUS. “He has a solid base but has done nothing, or worse, alienated anyone from coming back to him. It’s like the sixth or seventh season of a show that was once funny but now panders to his base.”
“If he continues down this road,” this member added, “and Harris stays her course and the economy starts to show signs of improvement, he will be a two-time loser.”
… On Wednesday, Trump held an event in North Carolina that was billed not as a rally but as a policy-driven address. Trump was supposed to deliver “remarks on the economic hardships created by the Harris-Biden administration.” Almost immediately, it went off the rails.
“They say it’s the most important subject. I’m not sure it is, but they say it’s the most important,” Trump said in reference to the economy.
He then— somehow— started talking about Harris’ laugh.
“What happened to her laugh? I haven’t heard that laugh in about a week,” Trump said. “That’s why they keep her off the stage. That’s why she’s disappeared. That’s the laugh of a crazy person. I will tell you, if you haven’t, it’s crazy, she’s crazy. They told her, ‘Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.’ No, her laugh is career-threatening.”
Trump’s insistence on making the presidential race about things like laughs instead of the economy— personal grievances rather than policy disagreements— is just the latest evidence that Trump will always be Trump. Even when he knows it would benefit him politically to stick to the teleprompter, like during his Republican National Convention speech, he can’t help but go off script.
In recent weeks, Trump has been fixated on whether Harris is actually Black, proving that he’s right about a scary helicopter ride and— even though he is out of the race— settling scores with President Joe Biden.
… “If you are talking about crowd size, J6, stolen elections and whether Kamala is Black, you are not talking about the border, affordability issues and foreign policy— matters that voters care about and win elections,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department appointee, told NOTUS. “This is back to a 50-50 election, and every vote matters. His base is not 75% of the country like he stated, and he can’t just wing it anymore.”
Bartlett continued that being “politically disciplined” is like being on a diet. “If you adhere to it, you get results and it makes you more inclined to stick with it,” Bartlett said. “Trump was disciplined for much of the past few years, primary and race against Biden. But his frustration with the new race against Harris has him throwing the diet out the window, and he is bingeing and purging out there now.”
…Trump just can’t seem to stay on that message. His campaign events are often plagued with rants and personal attacks on Harris that don’t help him or other Republicans, and Trump’s allies can’t figure out why he keeps going down this path.
One source close to Trump said, “The race is his to lose.” But this person cautioned that the path he is on right now is one that leads to failure.
“If he stays on message and attacks Harris’ policies, he’ll win,” this source said [wishful thinking— and dead wrong]. “If he continues to obsess about her race and past boyfriends, he’s going to lose and he’s going to lose big.”
… [W]ith Harris as the nominee, she’s been successful by making the contest about Trump again. And Trump, never one to pass up an opportunity for publicity, has been happy to oblige.
Recent polls, however, suggest the strategy isn’t working.
A Cook Political Report poll released on Wednesday showed significant movement in battleground states. Trump went from up 8% in North Carolina, up 3% in Pennsylvania and up 4% in Arizona in May to down 2%, down 5% and down 4% in those states, respectively.
And that’s already impacting Senate races. Yesterday we saw that Jacky Rosen, a very weak candidate, has pulled ahead of Republican Sam Brown in Nevada. Bob Casey is up by double digits against carpet-bagging self-funder David McCormick. The Cook polling referenced and linked above shows that all that Kamala-Tim enthusiasm and momentum has spilled into other Senate races as well, with significantly improved margins in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin as well. The Dems look like winners in all the states.
One of the only progressives running for Congress who made it through the California primaries, Derek Marshall will be facing a knee-jerk anti-Choice Trump backer in November. Lasst night he told us that his “opponent, Jay Obernolte, decided in 2020 that he was going to ride the MAGA train to victory. As that train derails, we must not allow Jay just to hop off when convenient. We must remember that his first vote in Congress was to decertify the election and he helped lay the groundwork to repeal women’s reproduction rights across the nation. Jay made his bed and now he must lay in it.” Please consider gibing Derek a hand at the Flip Congress ActBlue page here.
Look - TFG is mentally incompetent, cognitively impaired and nuts beyond belief, and he is getting worse as he ages. He can't complete a sentence and he makes no sense, plus now he is slurring his words. Drugs or dementia or both? He has never stuck to useful strategies, NEVER, and he never will, as he does not have any. He has been a phenomenal con man, that's it, and Republicans expecting or hoping for policies instead of abuse and stream of consciousness are nuts, too. And as far as Republican policies - they all STINK TO HIGH HELL anyway. More and more people will hopefully recognize this and momentum for a blue wave will rise.
"Trump’s insistence on making the presidential race about things like laughs instead of the economy— personal grievances rather than policy disagreements— is just the latest evidence that Trump will always be Trump." The question isn't "why can't Trump shift gears?", the question is "How did Trump's insanity ever work in the first place, and how can we keep it from working again?"