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Don’t let Trump’s buzzy sideshows distract you from his traditional swing-state strategy

Donald J. TrumpDon’t let Trump’s buzzy sideshows distract you from his traditional swing-state strategy

By Lisa Kashinsky, Jessica Piper and Meridith McGraw

Donald Trump’s upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden will mark the latest in a string of flashy detours from the battleground-state campaign trail in the closing weeks of the campaign.

But his buzzy sideshows are just that.

A POLITICO analysis of Trump’s campaign schedule since the Republican National Convention in mid-July, plus ad spending by his campaign, shows the former president is waging what amounts to a very traditional campaign in the core swing states.

Trump is blitzing the Rust Belt — with a particular focus on Pennsylvania, where he has visited well over a dozen times in the past three months — as he tries to recapture the “blue wall” states that broke his way in 2016 but not in 2020. And his campaign has devoted roughly 90 percent of its market-specific ad budget to all seven key battlegrounds.

For a candidate whose inflammatory rhetoric and meandering speeches have worried even some allies, Trump’s schedule and ad spending are both a reflection of the more disciplined structure of his third presidential bid — and a recognition of the incredibly close race he is running against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Even his campaign-trail side quests serve purposes. The former president appeared in Aurora, Colorado, earlier this month to amplify the anti-immigration rhetoric that drives his base, continuing with his demonization of migrants. The next day, he attacked Harris’ progressivism on her home turf of California when he rallied in the Coachella Valley. He is expected to trek to safely red Texas on Friday to join the most popular podcast in the world, hosted by Joe Rogan, as his campaign continues its push to win young, male voters.

And headlining Sunday at Madison Square Garden, a longtime dream for the former New Yorker, is as much about the spectacle as the optics of drawing a massive crowd to the national media’s backyard days before an election. On top of that, his visits can give a boost to Republicans in down-ballot races.

Trump is doing “what he always does, which is find some way for us to all over think and discuss what he’s doing, and make himself the center of the universe,” said Jason Roe, a Michigan-based Republican strategist.

He’s “figuring out a way to make one of his strengths a strength again,” Roe said.

Trump has long drawn outsize attention for staging rallies in enemy territory — such as when he drew thousands of people to the beachside community of Wildwood, New Jersey, or when he held a rally over the summer in the heart of the Bronx.

But since accepting his party’s nomination in July — in battleground Wisconsin — Trump has spent the vast majority of his time on the campaign trail in the seven states that are likely to decide who wins the White House: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

With 17 stops, Trump has made more appearances in Pennsylvania between July 20, the day after the Republican National Convention, and Oct. 22 than in any other state, according to a POLITICO review of his public schedule that sometimes includes holding multiple events in the same state on the same day. That’s followed by 11 events each in North Carolina, where Trump wrapped a two-day campaign swing on Tuesday, and in Michigan, where he is due to return for rallies on Friday and Saturday. He has made half a dozen appearances in Georgia, where he’s scheduled to return on Wednesday, and in Wisconsin. And Trump has made five appearances in Nevada and four in Arizona, where he also has stops planned for later this week.

Don’t let Trump’s buzzy sideshows distract you from his traditional swing-state strategy

His running mate, JD Vance, has similarly prioritized swing states — and Pennsylvania in particular. The Ohio senator has visited the Keystone State, which is the biggest prize on the battleground map with 19 electoral votes, the most since joining the ticket.

Since the Republican convention, the Trump campaign has also devoted about 90 percent of its market-specific advertising budget to the seven key battlegrounds, according to data from the ad tracking platform AdImpact, led by a $41 million investment in Pennsylvania.

But the Trump campaign has still spent a steady trickle on advertising in non-competitive markets, including New York and West Palm Beach, near his Mar-a-Lago resort.

The Harris campaign, by contrast, has devoted about 95 percent of its state-specific ad spending to those seven states. And the Harris camp has also spent $3 million in the Omaha, Nebraska, media market, shoring up the state’s one electoral vote, while Trump’s campaign has spent minimally there.

Trump’s battleground-state barnstorming — and Harris’, for that matter — reflects polling that shows an exceedingly close contest less than two weeks before Election Day. Trump and Harris were running even in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada on Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight polling averages, while the Republican held a slight edge in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

It is also another sign of how Trump’s electoral map has constricted since the early summer after then-rival President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the first assassination attempt against the former president left Republicans emboldened about their prospects even in blue-leaning states.

Reach states, once seemingly within grasp for Trump as Biden’s campaign derailed over the summer, remain just that against Harris. Trump boasted at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month that his campaign was making plays in New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota and New Mexico. But the former president has not campaigned in person in any of those states in nearly two months. And his campaign has almost entirely written off New Hampshire, another blue-leaning state, despite Trump’s pledge to visit.

“The visits he’s making are pretty traditional as to what can impact the race,” said Republican strategist Doug Heye.

Trump is, at his core, more showman than tactician. He obsesses over his crowd sizes and pays close attention to the headlines generated from his events. And those fixations can drive him to some unlikely places.

Still, parachuting into non-battleground states often provides Trump more reward than risk — giving him buzzy crowds, days of headlines and national platforms through which to broadcast his message to his wider base.

“We wouldn’t have gone to California or New York. We would have never even thought of it, except for maybe a fundraiser — and not said anything,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential bids.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appears on screen as he speaks at a rally.
Trump speaks at a rally at the Calhoun Ranch in Coachella, California, on Oct. 12. | Alex Brandon/AP

“But that’s because Mitt Romney was a far more conventional candidate than Trump is,” Williams said. “While he’s doing the basic blocking and tackling he has to do, he’s trying something different.”

When Trump descended on the Denver suburb of Aurora earlier this month, the national press followed, amplifying some of his darkest and most dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants far beyond the confines of the Colorado city that locals say the former president has mischaracterized as a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs. A similar effect could come if Trump follows through with visiting Springfield, Ohio, of which he has promoted baseless claims of Haitian migrants eating pets.

Trump’s detours can also potentially aid down-ballot Republicans in tough races, with many of the competitive contests that will decide control of the House playing out in districts far from the swing states that command the most attention. Rep. Ken Calvert, an endangered Republican in California’s 41st Congressional District, saw a polling boost after Trump rallied in Coachella, according to a national Republican strategist involved in House races.

“It’s great when he shows up in Scranton or in Michigan, but we have a lot of exposure in New York and California,” the Republican operative, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, said.

Madison Square Garden may be more personal for Trump than strategic — a legacy play in what the former New Yorker has said will be his final presidential bid, even if he loses.

It’s “vintage Donald Trump,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist.

“The media he will get out of it is going to far surpass, in terms of real impact, the appearance in New York itself,” Gerow said. “If he thinks he can make a play for New York, God bless him.”

One Republican close to Trump’s campaign said the former president is not rallying in the heart of Manhattan to try and win blue New York, but rather as an “exercise in earned media.”

“You think about his rallies, they just don’t get as much earned media as they used to,” said the Republican, who was granted anonymity to describe internal strategy. “But what has gotten the most amount of attention? When he went to the Bronx, California, or his plans for Madison Square Garden.”

This article was originally published in POLITICO

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