United States – Republican Donald Trump will campaign in the swing state of North Carolina on Wednesday, endeavoring to come to terms with a difficult 10 days in which he has lost his poll lead in opinion surveys.
Trump, who will speak at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) in Asheville, has angered some supporters, donors, and staffers by using harsh invectives against his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, instead of focusing on what his team and many critics suggest are the ineffective policies that she championed and that were implemented when she was vice president, as reported by Reuters.
Internal Criticism Over Campaign Strategy
Some associates of Trump have been caught off guard when Harris generated staggering fundraising levels after Biden suspended his campaign last month to focus on the vice presidency race. Some have complained in private about the Trump campaign not having a clear enemy that would most likely be popular with voters, as per those within the campaign.
Specifically, the former president’s attacks regarding Harris’ racial heritage have caused a particular type of worries. Trump has previously suggested that Harris, whose mother is from India and whose father was born in Jamaica, has embraced the Black identity as a political tactic more recently.
“Personally, it does not concern me in any way what Kamala wants to be,” remarked Bill Bean, a mammoth Republican benefactor who invited Trump vice presidential selection JD Vance to an Indiana fundraiser towards the end of July.
Bean stated that he discussed the matter with Vance, and the chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, and mentioned that the focus should be on the policy and accomplishments of Harris rather than her race.
Leavitt, the press secretary of Trump’s campaign, did not respond directly to those criticisms but opened up that the vice president was unfit for the position because of their record in office. Trump would defeat Harris.
“Kamala is weak, dishonest, and dangerously liberal, and that’s why the American people will reject her on November 5th,” she said in a statement.
National polls indicate that Harris has taken a slight general lead against Trump, while the polls in the swing states that will determine the November 5 election show a very close race.
At the event in Asheville, Trump will “give a speech on the economic suffering caused by the Harris-Biden Administration,” per his campaign.
His appearance comes after an often incoherent interview with billionaire Elon Musk on X on Monday night, which was interrupted by technical problems.
Upcoming Events and the Road Ahead
Last week, Trump held a rambling press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and over the weekend, he lied about students in a Harris campaign video using AI to make their crowds at a rally in Michigan appear larger than they were.
Harris will also visit North Carolina, where she will speak on economic policy in Raleigh on Friday. She will present a plan “to reduce costs more for middle-class families and challenge corporate greed on price gauging,” a campaign official said.
Upcoming Events
Trump is currently leading in North Carolina, as per the Real Clear Politics average of polls, but Harris has done well to keep his margin relatively low. That is quite a shift from what was observed a month ago when Biden was the candidate, and Republicans seemed to be celebrating the state’s victory and moving to Democrat-dominated states such as Virginia and Minnesota, as reported by Reuters.
On Saturday, Trump will speak in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, another swing state where Democrats seem to have gained substantial ground in the last few weeks.