Former President Donald Trump is in crisis mode as all his usual political tactics are coming up short against the newly minted Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket, Stephen Collison wrote for CNN.
In recent weeks, wrote Collison, Trump "has deployed some of his most trusted political tools," including "targeting racial identity, creating alternative realities, flinging insults and gaslighting" — and lately he has even made his own supporters uncomfortable with conspiracy theories that Harris' crowd sizes are manufactured by A.I.
His efforts to bring down his new adversary and her policy of ignoring his provocations have so far more highlighted his own liabilities than hers and emphasized the way Harris could offer a new choice for voters."
"When the ex-president called Harris 'dumb' at a Montana rally Friday night or falsely claimed last month that she 'happened to turn Black,' he may have delighted his base voters," wrote Collison. However, he is on the verge of "alienating women and swing-state voters, as well as reversing the gains he has made among minorities that he’d proudly highlighted for months.
"Trump’s campaign was also forced on Saturday to deny a report in The New York Times that he’d privately referred to Harris as a 'b---h' as he bemoaned her momentum."
The current state of the race, in short, is turning against Trump in a contest that he thought he had in the bag just a month ago, wrote Collison. But with several months to go and polls still showing a race that could go either way, it's not over by any stretch.
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"Trump remains a formidable political force and a vicious opponent," he wrote. "And having united his party behind him, especially in the wake of last month’s assassination attempt, he should still benefit from structural factors, including voters’ pessimism about the economy, that would normally be expected to help shape the election."
Nevertheless, concluded Collison, Trump is still "flailing" as he tries to find a way to reset the race — and "in recent days, he still hasn’t worked out a way to respond to the suddenly changed circumstances of the campaign."
