The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-02)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A

America First, the official pro- Trump super PAC. America First, which is running ads painting Biden as weak on crime, is conducting polling to test which messages might work best against the former vice president in the final stretch of the race. Trump campaign ads set to run in the coming days are also aimed at turning up the pressure on Biden, who the president has tried to brand as “sleepy” before switching to more ominous de- scriptors such as “corrupt” and “puppet of the militant left.” As it goes on the attack in the political realm, Trump’s campaign is in a defensive crouch when it comes to the electoral map. Polls show Biden leading across the battleground states and competitive in Republican strongholds such as Texas and Georgia. Trump’s campaign, which has already spent $1 billion, is using its hefty war chest to defend Re- publican territory, including Ari- zona. America First, the super PAC, has stopped running ads in Mich- igan, acknowledging that it’s less likely than other swing states to remain in Trump’s column in No- vember, an official said. The group is currently running television spots in North Carolina, Ari- zona, Pennsylvania and Wiscon- sin. Stepien has also sought to focus the campaign on securing the most direct path to 270 electoral votes. The campaign, which has also pulled back advertising in Michigan, has gamed out scenar- ios where Trump loses some of the states he won in 2016 and still ends up victorious. “We only need to win either Wisconsin or Michigan or Penn- sylvania to win this thing again,” Stepien told reporters on July 24. But news that Trump’s campaign had paused to reassess its messaging was welcomed by Biden's team, which viewed the move as a validation of the Demo- crat’s more low-key strategy. T.J. Ducklo, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, said Trump is losing because “he abandoned the American people” and lacked “any coherent strategy” to ad- dress a pandemic that has cost 150,000 lives and millions of jobs. “There,” he said in a statement. “Message assessment complete.” [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

didn’t respond until Thursday evening to the president’s early morning missive suggesting that the election should be delayed. “It is absolutely a strategic de- cision,” said a Biden official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal campaign tactics. “We don’t let him pull us off of our message and we don’t play his game.” But some Biden campaign allies believe that the former vice president’s operation is being too selective about how it responds to Trump’s attacks. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said that he’s been begging top campaign officials to punch back at Trump’s ads that wrongly suggest that Biden sup- ports defunding the police. The spots had been playing in high rotation in key swing states before the Trump campaign’s recent pause. “Obviously the Trump people have very few arrows in their quiver,” Rendell said. But the “law and order” message could work with some voters, he said. Trump, as he often does when he feels under pressure, is prepar- ing to go more aggressively into attack mode. Campaign officials expect a ruthlessly negative race in the final months. “We are doing a new ad campaign on Sleepy Joe Biden that will be out on Monday,” Trump wrote Friday on Twitter. “He has been brought even further LEFT than Crazy Bernie Sanders ever thought possible.” Stepien has told allies he wants attacks going forward to focus on the liberal figures trying to influ- ence Biden. Sanders, the inde- pendent senator from Vermont and self-described democratic so- cialist, has featured heavily in Trump’s messaging against Biden. But it’s not clear that the strategy is working. Several campaign aides and allies admitted that they have struggled to negatively define the former vice president in the eyes of voters — a long- standing goal for the summer that is quickly slipping out of reach. As Biden has largely remained in his Delaware home due to the pandemic, many of Trump’s attacks on his mental acuity, liberal pol- icies and approach to public safe- ty have not broken through. “One thing that we have found in our focus groups is that people just don’t know anything about Joe Biden,” said Kelly Sadler, the communications director for

impressed Trump with his command of data — is attempting to get a better sense of how the campaign has been focusing its energy and targeting its resources. Stepien told others he wanted to understand how ad decisions were made and why certain ads were being run, officials said. Trump’s senior adviser and son- in-law Jared Kushner approved the pause in ads, an official said. Stepien is also reviewing per- sonnel allocation to determine whether structuring the campaign the way Parscale did makes sense. Campaign officials have denied there is any lingering tension over Parscale’s demotion. But Stepien’s elevation and swift embrace of new tactics amount to a tacit rebuke of the former campaign manager’s tenure. The Stepien- led review of spending and strategy comes as a legal complaint this past week accused the campaign and an affiliated fundrais- ing committee of failing to prop- erly report nearly $170 million in campaign spending through firms run by Parscale. The Trump campaign denied any wrongdo- ing. Campaign officials said that when the pause in ad spending ends Monday, new television spots will aim to brand Biden as a tool of liberal extremists. The negative ads will initially target swing states that have the earliest mail-in voting dates. Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin are among states that begin mailing out absentee ballots to voters more than 45 days before the Nov. 3 election, according to the National Confer- ence of State Legislatures. Michi- gan, Georgia and Texas are among states where ballots will also begin hitting mailboxes in Septem- ber. The campaign, which held an all-staff meeting at its Arlington headquarters on Wednesday that one official described as a “call to arms,” is operating under a re- newed sense of urgency as it be- comes clearer that a large portion of the electorate will probably cast their ballots early by mail as a result of the pandemic. That gives Trump even less time to turn things around.

Few people wore masks or prac-
ticed social distancing.
With the president unable to
hold traditional rallies and his
central economic message no lon-
ger relevant, campaign officials
are scrambling to assemble a
fresh case for his candidacy on the
fly.
After a six-day pause in adver-
tising, new ads targeting Demo-
cratic rival Joe Biden are set to
begin airing Monday, according
to campaign officials who, like
others, spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss internal de-
liberations. It’s the latest in a
long-running attempt to define
the former vice president in the
eyes of voters before they cast
their ballots.
But Trump himself is perhaps
the greatest impediment to any
successful campaign pivot, as the
president has rejected calls from
Republican allies and lawmakers
to project a steady hand during
what is shaping up to be another
lost summer of self-inflicted set-
backs.
The turbulent final week of
July capped a month that may
rank among the most ominous of
Trump’s term in office, marked by
erratic behavior and flashing
warning signs.
A slew of public polls showed
Trump falling further behind
Biden, who now leads by double
digits nationally; Trump demoted
his campaign manager Brad
Parscale and replaced him with
longtime GOP operative Bill
Stepien; nearly 25,000 Americans
died of the novel coronavirus, and
a record 2 million were infected;
Trump canceled the Republican
National Convention celebra-
tions; the economic recovery
from a record contraction slipped
into reverse; and 30 million
Americans lost their $600 weekly
federal unemployment assistance
after the White House and Con-
gress struggled to negotiate a
stimulus package.
Struggling on multiple fronts,
Trump’s campaign launched a
major shake-up that included a
broader review of strategy, spend-
ing and messaging while ads
came off the air, officials said.
Stepien — who officials say has

TRUMP FROM A

Trump’s campaign

shifts into crisis mode

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most IN- ACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he wrote on Twitter. “It will be a great embar- rassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can proper- ly, securely and safely vote???” A chorus of Republicans and Democrats publicly rebuked him, noting that the president does not have the authority to delay an election. On a strictly political level, Re- publicans are worried that the president’s onslaught against mail-in voting could hamper their efforts to turn out the vote. Trump’s attempts to draw a dis- tinction between universal mail- in voting and individually re- quested absentee voting, while welcomed and encouraged by party officials, have not had the intended effect on Republican voters. GOP party officials have struggled to convince voters to request mail-in ballots. “He has denigrated mail-in voting to the point that Democrats are dominating requests for absentee ballots,” said David Was- serman, House editor for the non- partisan Cook Political Report. Like Trump’s unsubtle attempts to appeal to “Suburban Housewives” and virus-wary senior citizens, his push to discredit mail-in voting underscores the sense of angst in his reelection bid as Biden settles into a comfort- able lead. One top Biden campaign official acknowledged that the Dem- ocratic campaign strategy is often to stay out of the news when Trump’s behavior is particularly inflammatory. Biden’s team

But even as Stepien and top campaign aides try to impress on the staff that time is limited, Trump has done little to show he plans to change tactics. Trump’s allies say they realize the pandemic will probably be the central issue for voters heading into the election and have urged him to show he is in command of the crisis. The president has instead opt- ed to double down on divisive messaging, reverting to form after briefly appearing to embrace a more serious tone about the pandemic. In recent days, Trump has used his massive social media platform to promote a doctor who falsely claimed Americans did not need to wear masks because the anti- malarial drug hydroxychloro- quine is a “cure” for the coronavirus. Trump continued to express support for the doctor, Stella Im- manuel, after a reporter informed him Tuesday that she had also claimed that alien DNA is used in medical treatments. When pressed, he abruptly ended the news briefing and walked away. Earlier in the same briefing, Trump complained that health officials, including top infectious- disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, are popular but “nobody likes me.” “Why don’t I have a high ap- proval rating?” Trump asked before answering himself: “It can only be my personality. That’s all.” The president set off a fresh round of drama Thursday when he publicly mused about delaying the election, which he claimed without evidence will be marred by historic fraud.

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST President Trump talks to reporters Wednesday at the White House. His campaign has had recent issues adjusting its message.

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