Never one to run the most focused or disciplined campaign, Donald Trump’s response to Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic nominee and gaining ground on him in the presidential race seems to be to run an even more unfocused and undisciplined campaign than ever before.
And some of his closest advisers and strongest supporters are starting to worry.
“He’s rattled and needs to get on message,” one GOP House member told NOTUS. “Life’s too hard for too many; the border was left open; and everyone is paying too much for too little.”
Another GOP House member called Trump’s attacks on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp “extremely foolish” and, like many who spoke to NOTUS for this story, urged the former president to stay disciplined and focus on the issues.
“If he displayed self-discipline and impulse control, he’d win,” this member said. “The issues favor us. He’s been unable to focus on the issues and is behind. This is his race to lose, and he’s shooting himself in the foot. There’s some Trump fatigue too, and if he’d focus on issues and get off the personality attacks, he’d connect more with voters.”
And another GOP congressman was even more clear-eyed.
“Let’s be real: He lost in ’20,” this congressman told NOTUS. “He has a solid base but has done nothing, or worse, alienated anyone from coming back to him. It’s like the sixth or seventh season of a show that was once funny but now panders to his base.”
“If he continues down this road,” this member added, “and Harris stays her course and the economy starts to show signs of improvement, he will be a two-time loser.”
“President Trump continues to build a historic and unified political movement to make America strong, wealthy, and safe again,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement for this story. “Kamala Harris is the most unpopular Vice President in history and our campaign will spend every day until November 5th ensuring every voter understands how dangerously liberal Kamala is.”
On Wednesday, Trump held an event in North Carolina that was billed not as a rally but as a policy-driven address. Trump was supposed to deliver “remarks on the economic hardships created by the Harris-Biden administration.” Almost immediately, it went off the rails.
“They say it’s the most important subject. I’m not sure it is, but they say it’s the most important,” Trump said in reference to the economy.
He then — somehow — started talking about Harris’ laugh.
“What happened to her laugh? I haven’t heard that laugh in about a week,” Trump said. “That’s why they keep her off the stage. That’s why she’s disappeared. That’s the laugh of a crazy person. I will tell you, if you haven’t, it’s crazy, she’s crazy. They told her, ‘Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.’ No, her laugh is career-threatening.”
Trump’s insistence on making the presidential race about things like laughs instead of the economy — personal grievances rather than policy disagreements — is just the latest evidence that Trump will always be Trump. Even when he knows it would benefit him politically to stick to the teleprompter, like during his Republican National Convention speech, he can’t help but go off script.
In recent weeks, Trump has been fixated on whether Harris is actually Black, proving that he’s right about a scary helicopter ride and — even though he is out of the race — settling scores with President Joe Biden.
Trump has even resurrected a war going back to 2020 with Kemp, a bizarre move that almost certainly harms him in Georgia, where Kemp remains popular.
“If you are talking about crowd size, J6, stolen elections and whether Kamala is Black, you are not talking about the border, affordability issues and foreign policy — matters that voters care about and win elections,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department appointee, told NOTUS. “This is back to a 50-50 election, and every vote matters. His base is not 75% of the country like he stated, and he can’t just wing it anymore.”
Bartlett continued that being “politically disciplined” is like being on a diet. “If you adhere to it, you get results and it makes you more inclined to stick with it,” Bartlett said. “Trump was disciplined for much of the past few years, primary and race against Biden. But his frustration with the new race against Harris has him throwing the diet out the window, and he is bingeing and purging out there now.”
Trump and his team have tried to draw political distinctions between the former president and Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. On top of the policy disagreements, one easy difference is that Harris and Walz haven’t been giving interviews to the press.
But Trump just can’t seem to stay on that message. His campaign events are often plagued with rants and personal attacks on Harris that don’t help him or other Republicans, and Trump’s allies can’t figure out why he keeps going down this path.
One source close to Trump said, “The race is his to lose.” But this person cautioned that the path he is on right now is one that leads to failure.
“If he stays on message and attacks Harris’ policies, he’ll win,” this source said. “If he continues to obsess about her race and past boyfriends, he’s going to lose and he’s going to lose big.”
Yet another GOP congressman also warned that Trump “needs to get back on message and start talking about policy differences.”
“If he doesn’t do this,” this GOP member said, “I think he will lose and probably cost Republicans the House and Senate.”
While a number of other GOP members relayed that sentiment to NOTUS, there were some defenders of Trump. Freshman GOP Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri said Trump’s recent conversation with Elon Musk on X, in which the former president repeatedly went off topic, “probably will go down as one of the most famous and talked-about interviews in decades.”
Still, even when Republicans didn’t want to criticize Trump for his current strategy, sources tried to gently nudge the former president toward a different approach.
“President Trump has all the tools to win this race: He has the message, record and clear ability to contrast against Harris,” another GOP strategist told NOTUS. “He should focus all of his ammo and campaign on contrasting his agenda and accomplishments on the economy and border versus Harris’ record on those issues, which she is very weak on.”
But there’s little indication that Trump has the discipline to do that. Perhaps the most successful period of campaigning through three presidential races was the closing weeks of the 2016 race, after Trump tried to stay out of the spotlight following the leak of his “Access Hollywood” comments about grabbing women “by the pussy.”
Part of the reason that race shifted at the end was because, finally, it became about Hillary Clinton rather than Trump.
Earlier this cycle, Trump had a sizable lead on Biden, partially because the race was about the current president. With so much of the focus on Biden’s age and his ability to do the job, Trump benefited simply by staying home and playing golf.
But with Harris as the nominee, she’s been successful by making the contest about Trump again. And Trump, never one to pass up an opportunity for publicity, has been happy to oblige.
Recent polls, however, suggest the strategy isn’t working.
A Cook Political Report poll released on Wednesday showed significant movement in battleground states. Trump went from up 8% in North Carolina, up 3% in Pennsylvania and up 4% in Arizona in May to down 2%, down 5% and down 4% in those states, respectively.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.