Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is shifting to a defensive strategy as former President Donald Trump gains momentum in traditionally blue states, following Harris’s failure to achieve the typical post-convention boost that most modern campaigns anticipate.
To counter this, the campaign is dispatching Harris and her key surrogates — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her running mate, and her husband, Doug Emhoff — to blue states after a weekend focused on planned swing state visits.
On Wednesday, Harris is expected to visit New Hampshire, where she held only a four-point lead according to an Emerson College/WHDH poll conducted before the convention. The campaign event has yet to be announced. Meanwhile, Walz will be in his home state of Minnesota, where Harris's lead has narrowed from ten points to just five points since Walz joined the ticket, according to two KTSP/SurveyUSA polls. Emhoff is reportedly headed to Virgin
ia for a fundraising trip, another state where Trump has shown unexpectedly strong polling numbers in the 2024 cycle.
[Tweet text goes here]
— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) [Date of tweet]
Occasional detours during a long campaign season are not uncommon. However, these trips are particularly notable for a fledgling campaign hastily assembled after President Joe Biden’s collapse, especially with just over two months left until Election Day when every day is crucial.
The visits to blue states come after a weekend focused on swing states and a multi-day joint Harris-Walz tour through Georgia that left many political analysts puzzled.
This unconventional scheduling follows a disastrous week for the campaign, which was marked by backlash over its attack on 13 Gold Star families — an incident that significantly backfired.
[Tweet text goes here]
— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) [Date of tweet]
In another indication that the campaign is struggling, reports suggest that Biden will soon be sent out on the campaign trail.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed that Harris received "no overall bounce in support" after formally accepting her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention
Tag: