Clock is ticking on Trump comeback as early voting nears (North Caroline starts voting sept 4th)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clock-is-ticking-on-trump-comeback-as-early-voting-nears/ar-BB17trFk?li=BBnb7Kz

President Donald Trump is privately reassuring Republicans anxious about his deficits to Democrat Joe Biden, noting there are three months until Election Day and reminding them of the late-breaking events that propelled his 2016 comeback.


But four years later, the dynamics are very different.

Aides are increasingly worried that the 2020 campaign may already be defined as a referendum on Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and will feature a historic shift to remote and early vote options. The president’s campaign is scrambling for a reset, pausing advertisements while struggling to find both a cohesive message and a way to safely put the president on the road in front of voters.

Trump added to the tumult by publicly wondering if the election should be delayed while making the unfounded claim that the tilt toward mail-in balloting would lead to widespread voter fraud. That suggestion drew a rare rebuke from Republicans, many of whom quietly warned the White House that it could be interpreted as an admission that the president was losing and could hurt their chances of retaining the Senate.

And they warned that time is running out: The first state to hold early voting, the vital battleground of North Carolina, begins the process Sept. 4.

“He’s losing and the trajectory of the race is moving away from him,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser on Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and an opponent of Trump's reelection. “People vote at a moment in time: Even if there is something of a political recovery for the president in October, that is irrelevant for those who already voted.”

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The purchase was made with an eye on the new electoral calendar. The old adage that most of America doesn’t start paying attention to a campaign until Labor Day has been tossed aside in a year in which the novel coronavirus has killed more than 150,000 people in the U.S. and rewritten the rules of American society.

The new ad campaign will be a national buy but also target states that are among the earliest to vote. Trump campaign officials said the focus in August will be on states where more than half of the ballots will be cast before Election Day.

“The digital countdown clock on the wall may say 90-some days, but we all know the calendar is condensed with early voting,” said campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.




“A lot of people are going to start voting before Sept. 29. The idea that they would not have seen one presidential debate by then, to me, seems ridiculous,” said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally. “I think we should either move the dates up or add additional debates.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clock-is-ticking-on-trump-comeback-as-early-voting-nears/ar-BB17trFk?li=BBnb7Kz