Former President Donald Trump is finally gearing up for an all-out sprint in his bid to reclaim the White House.
Trump, who was caught flat-footed when Democrats switched horses this summer, has held 26 campaign events this month — most of them rallies — more than the 21 he attended in June and July combined, according to an NBC News analysis of his schedule. The rise started in August, when he organized 19 events.
While it is traditional for campaigns to pick up steam after Labor Day, some Republicans were concerned that Trump let the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, take the plunge on him when she stormed the country in August after taking the baton from President Joe Biden had taken over. at the top of her company’s card. Now Trump is racing against Harris and the clock.
“They’re doubly timing it because they know they’re screwed with this 100-day period,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “In fact, you are fighting for centimeters on the electoral map. No one knows exactly what will ultimately put one campaign above the other.”
Similar late-summer campaign moves were also evident during Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
For allies who had complained about a slow start this summer, Trump’s rapid pace answers nagging questions about whether the campaign was prepared to take on Harris after Biden was knocked out of the race. Also allowing Trump’s supporters to consider the possibility of a victory in November, polls show Trump is on a stronger trajectory after Harris quickly set fundraising records and built his advantage among voters erased.
Trump held two rallies this weekend in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In both, he launched increasingly personal attacks on Harris, baselessly questioning her mental fitness and calling her “mentally retarded.” At the rally in Pennsylvania, he called for Harris to be “impeached and prosecuted” over her policies on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Leading the charge for more events is Trump himself, a campaign official said. He said Trump would have a quiet Sunday, but instead urged, “We have to do something,” leading to the rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Trump has several high-profile events in the coming days. On Monday he will visit the state of Georgia, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene. Politicians’ trips to storm-ravaged areas are always a gamble, with the risk that such high-profile visits will strain resources in communities still trying to recover. Neither Biden nor Harris visited the region in the aftermath of the storm.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, will not appear at Trump’s event on Monday, an aide told NBC News.
On Saturday, Trump plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, to hold an event at the site where he was shot in an assassination attempt on July 13.
For Trump, the multiple campaigns are not without challenges, with both candidates facing an unprecedented level of security after the two attempts to assassinate Trump.
The Trump campaign had wanted to hold an outdoor rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, but Secret Service officials said they would not have access to the manpower and resources needed to organize a rally at an outdoor airport while the General Assembly United Nations met in New York City. This is according to senior secret service officials and an official familiar with the planning.
On Saturday, Trump mused that he would have had as many as 50,000 people at his rally in Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin, if he had been allowed to hold it outdoors.
Looking ahead to the final month before Election Day, the Trump campaign expects two to three rallies a week, a few smaller policy-focused events, shopping stops at local stores and town halls hosted by campaign surrogates, a Trump campaign official familiar with the planning said.
“No one in the political game is working harder than President Trump, especially in the fourth quarter,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement to NBC News. “President Trump and Senator Vance will continue to outdo Harris and Walz in the media and deliver their winning message of making America rich, safe and strong again to voters across the country.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
