30 Days Out, the Harris and Trump Campaigns Brace for ‘Trench Warfare’

As the final 30 days of the presidential race approach, former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are pulling the same guns from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt.

Many Democrats believe that the party’s large national presence in a year, and a trend that would mean the equivalent of an average of seven national battles, would have a significant impact. The Trump campaign believes they will have an advantage in the closing weeks due to recent events, such as the catastrophic hurricanes that have killed over 200 people in the Southeast and the growing turmoil in the Middle East.

The two strategies are somewhat reminiscent of the latter stages of the 2016 election, when Mr. Trump promoted a national platform centered on bolstering anti-immigrant sentiment and boosting the economy with a comparatively small staff and virtually no field operation in the crucial states, while Hillary Clinton’s campaign boasted about a vast, data-driven field organization. Naturally, Mr. Trump won, with assistance from the director of the FBI resuming an investigation into the Democratic nominee’s email correspondence.

Democrats aren’t that arrogant this time. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump and his party have either lost or fared poorly in every significant election since then, a lot of Democrats think they might lose this one.

The 2020 presidential candidate Julián Castro, a former mayor of San Antonio, declared, “Anybody would be a fool to write Trump off.” “I believe she will get through this, but can I say with any assurance that she will? No. We all learned in 2016 that this woman is unpredictable.”.

This election, seasoned campaign hands note, is unusual: major political happenings seem to make little difference in the relative standing of the two candidates. Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris have each enjoyed brief spikes in their popularity after each staged an assassination attempt, after each participated in presidential and vice-presidential debates, and after each attended party conventions but never saw any of this change endure in public opinion.

Thus, top representatives of each camp describe the race as one that can be decided by a small margin—at most the difference between a winner and a loser is a few thousand votes

Ralph Reed, a Georgia social conservative activist, who supported the Trump team in its electoral efforts, said he couldn’t recall a presidential race since 2000 in which several states have folded especially late in the race.

He said that fighting between warring nations was like World War I trench warfare. Everyone is totally involved. It’s a no man’s land, everyone shoots machine guns and cannons.

Spending has surged due to the close election, particularly in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Both campaigns’ officials insisted that the states were still very competitive and refused to place them in any particular order of significance.

“I don’t think there’s a blue, white, or western way,” said Dan Kaninen, the Harris campaign’s director of battleground states. “Ultimately, I think any of the seven close races could be a tipping point state, so we’re vying to win them all.”

Since Sept. 1, more than $675 million has been committed to reserve time for internet and television advertisements, according to media analytics company AdImpact. In all seven of those states, the Harris campaign has spent more money on advertising than the Trump campaign. In each of the seven states, Democratic third-party organizations have also outspent their Republican counterparts.

Still, Democrats in swing states say they are being pounded with slick mailers ripping Ms. Harris and shilling Mr. Trump as a guardian of Social Security benefits because of the Republicans’ gargantuan direct-mail effort.

Mail tracking company Mintt discovered that 81% of all mailed direct mail in September was either opposing or endorsing Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris. The disparity had been even more pronounced in August: Republican organizations sent 96% of all direct mail about the presidential contest, the company discovered.

Nick Everhart, a national Republican consultant and ad buyer said, “Earth sports programs and ads are flooding all over these states to get thousands of voters to determine winners. “With such a close campaign and internal change no day appears, every week , every day, every minute, every second matters .”

Republicans admit they are losing the war on television and are outmanoeuvred in the major states, but they believe Mr. Trump can overcome these structural deficiencies because of his strength in the areas of immigration and the economy.

According to surveys, Republicans continue to have an advantage when it comes to economic matters, even in the face of declining gas costs, a stalling of inflation, and the first interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in four years. Public opinion on immigration has shifted south during the Biden administration, and many Americans have expressed support for more enforcement measures to curb illegal immigration

Scott Walker, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, estimated ten Harris ads on television for every Trump job during the Milwaukee Brewers baseball playoff game this week. He also acknowledged that Wisconsin Democrats outperformed Republicans on policy.

“You do see the economic benefits for them,” Mr. Walker said. “It’s the Republican-dominated issue matrix that keeps him close, as it is anywhere in the country.”

The purpose of spending all this money is to draw a small portion of the millions of voters that are anticipated to cast ballots. Jim Messina, a Democratic strategist assisting Ms. Harris through affiliated outside organizations, claims that just 4% of voters in battleground states are unsure about how or whether to cast a ballot.

Those who are unsure about which candidate to support or whether to vote at all may be the main focus of both campaigns.

“Our top priority ought to be reaching out to those who occasionally aren’t sure whether to come out on election day, and that will be a really deciding factor in the election,” New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated following a tour in Wisconsin last week. “It concerns the decision to either stay at home or take part in our process.”

With hundreds of organizers and dozens of offices spread across all seven swing states, the Harris team feels that they have established an operation capable of reaching those voters. Campaign staff for Harris claim that there are significant distinctions between their organization and the Clinton campaign. They claim that since the Clinton campaign mostly concentrated on energizing the Democratic base, their team is attempting more vigorously to reduce Mr. Trump’s margins in more conservative and rural areas.

Their outreach involves mobilizing ardent Democrats as well as swaying moderate Republicans who backed Mr. Trump in prior elections but disagree with his indictments, impeachments, and overall behavior since taking office.

On the other hand, Trump advisors see the current situation as supporting their main campaign theme, which is that Ms. Harris has the strength, readiness, and ability to bring about the peace that the Biden administration vowed to restore when it was elected four years ago.

They argue that, based on polls indicating that a growing number of voters now identify as Republicans and are inclined to support them on issues, they are competing in a nation that has shifted toward conservatism during the previous four years.

Regarding the intensifying battles overseas and the catastrophic storms domestically, “new, not-baked-in information can certainly have an impact on moving voters to President Trump or further galvanizing and motivating his supporters,” stated James Blair, the political director for the Trump campaign. “The case we’ve been prosecuting is definitely strengthened by those two specific new pieces of information.”

Their whole ground game strategy, which has been mostly delegated to outside groups, has been directed toward inspiring their lowest-propensity supporters, with an emphasis on younger Black men in particular and young men in general.

Some Democrats believe that the Harris campaign isn’t reaching enough minor segments of their support, despite their extensive field operation.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who warned her party openly and often that they would lose their state in 2016, said the party’s core supporters are not happy with Michigan and it’s still up for grabs.

“The level of anger in all of our communities is beyond words,” she exclaimed. “It is very awful. Many members of the Arab American and Jewish communities are absent. Young male African Americans show their annoyance at being ignored. Furthermore, it’s unclear if young people will attend.

Ms. Harris mentioned as much on Friday when campaigning in Flint, Michigan.

She predicted that the race will be extremely close until the very finish. “We are not the favorites.”