Donald Trump is calling game on the Republican presidential primary before voting even starts, as his campaign adopts a general election posture aimed at President Joe Biden.
(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump is calling game on the Republican presidential primary before voting even starts, as his campaign adopts a general election posture aimed at President Joe Biden.
The former president’s large early lead over Ron DeSantis and other rivals is allowing him to pivot toward Biden. It also gives him leeway to pummel DeSantis before the Florida governor can even officially announce his bid and ensure there’s no oxygen for any other candidate.
Iowa’s first-in-the nation Republican caucus isn’t until February 2024. Yet the ex-president has built a lead of almost 30 percentage points over DeSantis in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls while other rivals languish in single digits.
Trump’s pivot toward the general election includes a May 10 televised town hall on CNN, a mainstream cable network that he hasn’t been on since 2016. Since leaving office in January 2021, Trump has only appeared on conservative-friendly platforms like Fox News and Newsmax.
At the town hall in New Hampshire, which has the first GOP primary, Trump’s advisers want him to bring his answers from the audience of Republican and undeclared voters back to economic issues.
Trump plans to talk a lot more about Biden now that he’s announced his reelection campaign, an adviser said. He especially plans to attack Biden’s handling of the economy with a message grounded in polls showing most Americans think it worsened Trump’s term ended, according to the adviser.
That line of attack typically comes later in the presidential cycle once most states have voted or once the primaries have concluded with a nominee.
Yet Trump wants to encourage the view his nomination is inevitable, weaken DeSantis and improve his polling match-ups with Biden because it eases Republican skepticism that he can win, according to GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, who conducts focus groups with Republican voters and publishes the anti-Trump website The Bulwark.
“He knows his Achilles’ heel is electability, and that’s one of the reasons people are attracted to Ron DeSantis,” Longwell said. “He’s trying to demonstrate he can get back in the ring with Biden and win.”
Still, strategists say it’s too soon to declare the nomination contest over. DeSantis has about $86 million in his Florida campaign account that could be transferred to a super political action committee to support a presidential campaign. The pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, which has started running ads assailing Trump, said it raised $33 million since launching on March 9.
“Ron DeSantis is one of the most successful governors in American history, and polling in key states consistently shows DeSantis beating Biden while Trump would lose yet again,” said Erin Perrine, a spokesperson for Never Back Down.
Trump’s general election recalibration started with an April 27 New Hampshire speech, two days after Biden officially announced a reelection bid. He said he was going to “crush” the current president and “settle our unfinished business.” He also started deriding Biden, whom he referred to as “Sleepy Joe” in 2020 as “Crooked Joe,” a retread of his attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Trump’s even suggested he’s so far ahead in the polls he doesn’t need to participate in the Republican debates starting in August. “Why would you do that?” he said. “I do look forward to the debate with Joe.”
But Trump’s gambit comes with risks. While polls show a lack of Democratic enthusiasm around a second Biden term, there’s no greater lightening rod for turnout — and a pry for donors’ checkbooks — than Trump.
Biden, too, savors a rematch. Asked last week if he was the only Democrat capable of defeating his predecessor, the president said “we’ve been down this road before” and know “the danger he presents to our democracy.”
Democrats say if Trump wins the nomination, his legal challenges, unpopularity with independent voters, suburban women and even many Republicans will be to their advantage.
Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake, who worked for Biden’s 2020 campaign, said her voter focus groups show Republicans have the advantage on the economy, where Trump’s attacking Biden. Americans remain upset about inflation, she warned, and worry the country could tip into recession. Lake said it was important for Democrats to appear in touch with Americans’ feelings on the economy heading into 2024.
Trump is focused on early primary states and engaged in retail politics that DeSantis typically eschews. He’s been taking questions from attendees at his events, shaking hands and stopping at local restaurants.
Trump’s campaign says part of his appeal in 2016 was speaking to voters in unconventional venues and that he’s recapturing some of that energy. Advisers say his February trip to East Palestine, Ohio, to meet with residents and officials dealing with the toxic fallout from a Norfolk Southern Corp. derailment, was a turning point and not just the April 4 indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that galvanized many Republicans.
Trump has also worked to secure endorsements of key Republicans and announced at his New Hampshire event that some 50 state lawmakers had endorsed him. He’s focused especially on Florida, where more than half of the state’s congressional delegation has backed the former president over DeSantis, effectively weakening their own governor.
“They want an early knockout punch, and they want to lock up the nomination early,” said Boston-based Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. “They want to go right to the general election as soon as they can.”
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