Does Donald Trump seem … different lately? If you’ve been wondering why the former president has been acting especially bizarre since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, you aren’t alone.
Trump’s recent campaign events, the few he’s held, have veered further into the incoherent, even for a guy who routinely forgets the name of his own doctor.
Trump has also held far fewer rallies this August than he did at the same point in 2016 or 2020, and his laid-back schedule has some MAGA insiders worried that their candidate is blowing it for the GOP just as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign prepares for an all-out sprint to November.
Harris’ surging poll numbers have clearly thrown the 78-year-old Trump off his game. Voters seem to be noticing his light campaign schedule—and they’re punishing the entire Republican Party for it in the polls. If that trend holds, the GOP’s summer vacation will end up costing them dearly in November.
Trump’s biggest polling drops are in states where he’s either canceled events or sharply reduced his campaign schedule. When Trump does end up hauling himself to states like Michigan—where he went from a 2-percentage-point lead against Biden to trailing Harris by 3 points—what voters see is a candidate who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. That was definitely the case on Tuesday, when Trump visited a town once known as the “KKK capital of Michigan” for a relatively short speech focused on crime.
“Trump’s certainly slowed down, and the energy levels are much lower,” said Republican consultant Mike Madrid, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a Republican anti-Trump organization. “This is a problem for a campaign whose whole brand is being high energy. As the older, more feeble candidate in the race, he risks undermining his entire image by lacking that energy.”
Michigan is an odd choice to debut a series of attacks blaming Harris for rising crime rates. As Michiganders know, the state’s violent crime rate rose 12% in the last year of Trump’s presidency, and during Biden’s second year in the White House, it fell by over 7%. But even Trump didn’t seem persuaded by his own talking points. It took only a few minutes for him to derail his own speech by complaining about how women don’t like him.
For a guy who held a rally most days in August 2016, the handful of lackluster events Trump headlined this month feel more like a liability than a boost for the Republican ticket. That’s if Trump even gets to the stated purpose of his rally. Attendance at Trump’s live events has dwindled to the MAGA obsessives, and the candidate has altered his rambling monologues to match.
“He’s not the same candidate we saw in 2016 or 2020,” Republican strategist Susan Del Percio told Daily Kos. “He’s prone to losing his train of thought, confusing names and where he’s speaking from. Then there are his wild rants that lead to him going off on tangents—sharks, boats, and electrocutions come to mind,” she added, referring to a recurring topic of Trump’s recent speeches.
While the MAGA faithful may still believe the sun rises and sets on Mar-a-Lago, Republican strategists close to the Trump campaign are aware that their checked-out boss is sapping voter enthusiasm in key swing states. Even a small amount of disillusionment matters when key states will likely be decided by fractions of a percentage point.
Trump’s situation has worsened so much that even veteran conservative loyalists, like economist Thomas Sowell, are breaking their silence. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Sowell blasts Trump and the GOP for kicking their feet up as Harris and Democrats reset the electoral map. “Republicans better get on the ball,” Sowell’s headline blares, with the sub-headline adding, “The clock is ticking.”
Even ruby-red Texas, which Trump last visited in May, is showing signs of slipping away. Earlier this summer, Trump led Biden by 9 points in the Lone Star State, according to a poll from YouGov and the University of Houston, but a new survey from the same pollsters finds that Harris has cut Trump’s lead nearly in half, to just 5 points. Downballot races aren’t safe, either: The same poll shows Sen. Ted Cruz leading his opponent, Democrat Colin Allred, by just 2 points. This is Texas we’re talking about.
“There’s no question this affects voter enthusiasm, even if only on the margins,” Madrid cautions. “In a closely contested race, margins matter, and the pace and tempo of a campaign is critical. … [U]ndermining his image could affect turnout among Trump’s base.”
In 2016 and 2020, Trump could rely on a media cycle that reliably centered him in the national conversation. But Biden’s shocking departure from the race and the meteoric rise of Harris as a media darling have thrown that strategy out the window. Even conservative media networks—once stalwart Trump megaphones—are shying away from covering the former president’s uninteresting outings. Both Fox News and Newsmax cut away from Trump’s Michigan rally after only a few minutes.
Trump’s sudden hesitation about campaigning may come as a comfort to one group of people: his own campaign consultants.
“He has hired professionals, and they are probably relieved not to have to clean up whatever mess Trump makes at his public appearances,” Del Percio said.
