Trump's 2020 campaign has all but given up trying to raise the president's approval numbers: report

According to a report from Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press, officials running Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign has all but given up trying to increase the president's approval numbers which have never broken 50 percent since he was elected in 2016, and are betting everything on driving down presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's numbers.

Sources note that the White House spent the weekend "scrambling" after internal polls showed the president in danger of being wiped out in November which has created big worries for Trump.

As the two AP correspondents wrote, "The president, West Wing advisers and campaign aides have grown increasingly concerned about his reelection chances as they’ve watched Trump’s standing take a pummeling first on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and now during a nationwide wave of protests against racial injustice. His allies worry the president has achieved something his November foe had been unable to do: igniting enthusiasm in a Democratic Party base that’s been lukewarm to former Vice President Joe Biden."

"Internal campaign surveys and public polling showed a steady erosion in support for Trump among older people and in battleground states once believed to be leaning decisively in the president’s direction, according to six current and former campaign officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations," the report states. "The campaign recently launched a television ad blitz in Ohio, a state the president carried by 8 percentage points four years ago, and it sees trouble in Arizona and warning signs in once-deep-red Georgia."

With Trump's approval numbers in freefall, campaign operatives have been training their guns on the president's likely opponent, hoping to drag him down below the president's level , but -- as a Biden advisor explained -- it's not working.

“The Trump campaign keeps calling the same play, talking a big game and then getting smoked on the field,” explained Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo. “The Trump Campaign and their Super PAC have spent nearly $20 million attacking Biden since April 1, and they have watched Trump steadily decline in the polls.”

Trump is also facing his own problems of not being able to get on the trail where he feels he is most effective at rallying his base, but aides worry sparsely attended rallies have the potential to do more harm than good -- which could backfire on the campaign.

"Trump has been hankering for a return to his old mainstay, so much so that he yanked the public-facing parts of the Republican National Convention from North Carolina, casting doubt on millions of dollars of commitments and more than a year of planning. Now the boring business of the convention will remain in Charlotte, but the celebratory aspects will shift to a to-be-determined city that will allow Trump to put on the show he desires," the report states.  "While Trump has demanded that the campaign prepare to schedule rallies as soon as the summer, aides have cautioned that it could be risky to fill an arena — creating the potential for negative news stories if the virus were found to have spread at a campaign event. And that is if they could even persuade the requisite crowds to gather before there is a vaccine.

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