Trump's hometown newspaper lays out ways Harris can beat him

Vice President Kamala Harris is ascendant, with glowing coverage in media and rising poll numbers — but that won't last forever as former President Donald Trump finds his footing and fights back with all the ugliness he can muster, wrote communications consultant Mark Sell in the former president's hometown newspaper.

It would be foolish for Harris to "underestimate" Trump ahead of what could be a "bloody" reckoning, Sell warned in the Palm Beach Post, which covers the community that Trump's Mar-a-Lago is in.

"This 'very stable genius' is a savvy, resilient hot mess with a reptilian knack to read a room, size up an audience, tap into the national mood, and attack another’s weakness. Check his YouTube-able 1980 Rona Barrett interview in which he said other countries are playing us for suckers and laughing behind our back and played coy about becoming president. Ever seen Trump laugh?"

For the time being, Trump is reportedly still confused how to proceed with President Joe Biden out of the race, and his campaign strategists are cringing when he goes to swipe at her with racial undertones. But once he turns up the heat, wrote Sell, Harris has to respond in the right way.

In particular, he wrote, she needs to build up her brand hard and fast: "Think bumper stickers. Vision over division. America versus Trump. TEAM versus Trump. Be counterintuitive but lay off racial identity: Dudes/Guys/Bikers/Truckers/Cops/Gun Owners/Hunters for Harris/Walz-Kelly-whatever. Or this, from the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota: 'We all do better when we all do better.'"

Another important factor, he wrote, is that Harris needs to make her supporters feel like she's personally reaching out to them.

He recounted a story of when he paid $5 for a printable ticket to a Trump rally, but then no ticket was requested and he could have got in for free. "I felt suckered, as if Team Trump had ripped me off of five bucks while laughing at me behind my back," he wrote.

"Yet Team Trump never forgot that $5. Take this recent email from Don Jr.: 'I was talking to my father today, and he said: ‘I thought Mark was one of our strongest supporters. I wonder what happened to him?' Such relationship-building is one reason the Republican Party now dominates Florida."