Watching Donald Trump shamble into the election’s ultimate stretch, it’s tough to consider he’s severe about this marketing campaign. His pitch to voters has boiled all the way down to nothing however racism and random tax breaks. And now he’s taken to campaigning in blue states he has no hopes of successful.
It’s the conduct of somebody who believes he can’t lose, regardless of that he’s in the course of what polls say is a toss-up race.
Take his chaotic marketing campaign cease in Coachella, California, over the weekend. He dragged his supporters out to the desert in 100-degree warmth in a state the place Biden pulled roughly 64% of the vote in 2020, simply to ramble at them for 80 minutes. Moreover actually overheating his fan base to the purpose the place a number of wanted medical consideration, Trump additionally stranded lots of those self same followers within the desert for hours.
Sure, after busing the trustworthy roughly 5 miles from their vehicles to the occasion, the marketing campaign didn’t do sufficient to get them again when issues have been executed. Posts on X confirmed a whole lot of individuals nonetheless ready round, vainly hoping for extra buses, hours after the occasion ended. Trump followers speculated that the shortage of buses was resulting from some nefarious affect from Democrats relatively than the far less complicated rationalization: The candidate who marooned his supporters a number of occasions in 2020 is doing it once more.
Trump can be planning a rally at New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard on Oct. 27, with an unnamed marketing campaign adviser telling NBC Information that that is simply all a part of a genius technique.
“Choosing high-impact settings makes it so the media can’t look away and refuse to cover the issues and the solutions President Trump is offering,” the adviser stated.
As a result of if there’s one factor Trump lacks, it’s media protection.
That very same unnamed adviser additionally defined that getting these media eyeballs “increases the reach of his message across the country and penetrates in every battleground state.” Positive does appear to be it will be simpler to only go to a type of battleground states as an alternative.
Common people can attend the rally, however solely the well-heeled will get the total Trump-in-NYC expertise by attending to attend his fundraiser the identical day. For the low worth of $924,600, donors can have what the marketing campaign is looking an “Ultra MAGA Experience.” There are a number of tiers of “experiences,” none of which is defined, however $5,000 is the bottom quantity one can hand Trump to get within the door.
It’s not simply bizarre that 9 days earlier than the election, Trump is holding a rally in New York, which he misplaced by roughly 22 proportion factors to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 after which did even worse in opposition to President Joe Biden in 2020. It’s additionally bizarre that 9 days earlier than the election, Trump is doing a large fundraiser as an alternative of stumping for votes. However he’ll want that cash if he plans to win the election through post-election litigation as an alternative of, you recognize, votes.
From the day after the 2020 election to Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Trump raised over $254 million for an “election defense fund.” In concept, that cash was imagined to fund lots of the greater than 50 unsuccessful lawsuits filed to attempt to overturn the 2020 elections. In the end, Trump used a minimum of $100 million of that cash for his private authorized payments.
Simply as Trump has made no secret of the truth that he plans to just accept the outcomes of the 2024 election provided that he wins, Republicans haven’t hidden that they plan on wreaking havoc in court docket if he doesn’t. By early September, the GOP had already filed over 100 election-related lawsuits. By the tip of the month, that had jumped to over 120 lawsuits in 26 states. Republicans have pretended that is to forestall voter fraud—which is largely a delusion—however it’s actually about stitching chaos and mistrust forward of the election. In any case, that is the celebration that made Christina Bobb, a former correspondent for the far-right One America Information Community, its head of election integrity—the identical Christina Bobb presently underneath indictment in Arizona for her function in attempting to subvert the 2020 outcomes.
Given that almost two-thirds of Republicans nonetheless consider that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, they aren’t prone to discover any scorched-earth ways in 2024 problematic. Trump is aware of his base will throw him unbelievable sums of cash for the hassle, so why not play Coachella? Why not be in New York—a state he received’t win—solely a handful of days earlier than the election?
Trump higher hope lots of his extra well-heeled supporters really feel like throwing him practically seven figures for no matter low-rent tackiness the Extremely MAGA Expertise could be. He definitely doesn’t appear fascinated about successful this factor on the poll field.
