On Saturday, Business Insider reported that President Donald Trump is planning to return to his "comfort zone" by holding a long string of rallies in the fall, ramping up his campaign for re-election next year — in part to try to take his and everyone else's mind off the litany of embarrassments and scandals that occurred over the summer.
This week, according to Politico, a Trump campaign official suggested he will hold rallies in Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada — all states that Trump lost. At these rallies, he is likely to fall back on his typical patterns — bragging about himself and attacking Democrats.
Even by Trump standards, this summer did not go well. He was accused of rape by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. He escalated tensions with Iran. He lost a major case over the Census citizenship question in front of a conservative Supreme Court. He faced fresh accusations of racism for telling four congresswomen of color to "go back" where they came from, said Baltimore is a "rodent and rat infested mess," and a white supremacist mass shooter used his rhetoric against immigrants. In between all that, he shot a campaign video while visiting shooting victims, tried to buy Greenland, and falsified a hurricane forecast with a Sharpie.
He has emerged from this season of scandal with falling approval ratings in every battleground state — including double-digit drops in all four of the states he is planning rallies in.