Trump said to be 'freaking out' as he's 'caught in a no-win situation' against Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris' energetic speech in Milwaukee on Tuesday signaled a sea change in how the 2024 presidential campaign will be run, argues Salon's Amanda Marcotte.

In her latest piece, Marcotte argues that President Joe Biden's stumbling debate performance and infrequent public appearances had allowed former President Donald Trump to essentially skate by doing minimal campaign appearances while spending much of his days golfing in Florida.

Now that Biden has exited the race and Harris appears set on barnstorming the country in the final sprint to the White House, however, Trump has nowhere to hide.

In fact, writes Marcotte, Trump is liable to make things worse for himself if he tries to match Harris' hectic campaign given how much his rhetoric in the past has shown itself to be repulsive to swing voters.

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"With Harris as the Democratic nominee, however, Trump is caught in a no-win situation," she contends. "If he continues to hang back from the campaign trail while she's out there hustling, he'll start inviting the questions about whether he's too old and weak, the exact questions that plagued Biden. But if he starts doing more media and events that are outside the MAGA bubble, he will draw negative attention and remind voters why they hate him. In the face of this paradox, Trump's first impulse was to keep pretending Biden is his opponent. As reality sets in, Trump's freaking out."

Marcotte further adds that a debate between Trump and Harris would further draw a favorable contrast between the two candidates, as Harris "would remind voters how much nicer it is when a politician can speak in complete sentences without going off on weird tangents about electric sharks and 'the late, great Hannibal Lecter.'"

Furthermore, writes Marcotte, Trump's recent speech at the Republican National Convention was more likely than not to give swing voters the impression of a "racist grandpa is up way past his bedtime."