Harris, Walz and Vance’s speech tour, Trump’s relaxed campaign schedule | Real Time Headlines

former president Donald Trump He said on Thursday he planned to stay away from presidential campaign Rally until after Democratic National Conventionwhich will end on August 22nd.

The Republican candidate’s schedule this month defies traditional campaign strategy and stands in stark contrast to Trump’s last successful bid for the White House in August 2016.

That month, Trump held 27 noisy campaign rallies Across 15 states. By comparison, Trump has held just one rally so far this month.

On Thursday, a reporter asked Trump why he was “not on the campaign trail this week.”

“Because I was way ahead, because I got their convention through and I did a lot of campaigning,” Trump replied in a wide-ranging speech. press conference at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The reporter asked: “Are you going to pick up the trip?”

“Yes, after their convention,” Trump replied, again referring to the Democratic convention that will begin on August 19.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his Republican running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, spent the week touring the president’s battleground states.

After debut their partnership tuesday night at Philadelphia rallyHarris and Walz spoke at rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday and Thursday. The two will travel to Arizona and Nevada for events on Friday and Saturday. All five states are closely contested in the November elections.

Trump has been conducting phone interviews from his resort Mar-a-Lago for the past five days. podcastand held an hour-long press conference there on Thursday.

His public schedule also appeared to confirm his stated plans to curtail rally travel in the coming weeks. only Currently posted events The “events” page of the Trump campaign website shows that a rally in Montana on Friday will benefit Republican Senate candidate Tim Shea.

Shea hopes to replace incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in November, and Trump’s emergence comes May inspire Republicans In deep red state.

While in Montana, Trump will attend a campaign fundraiser. He will then stop in Aspen, Colorado, for another fundraiser on Saturday before returning to Florida.

CNBC reached out to the Trump campaign and confirmed that the Republican candidate does not plan to resume large in-person presidential campaign rallies until after the Democratic National Convention.

“President Trump has a busy travel schedule, including rallies, information events and fundraisers next week. He has held more campaign events than Harris and Walz combined,” Trump spokesman Steven Chang (Steven Cheung) told CNBC.

There are less than 13 weeks until Election Day, Polls show presidential race Statistically tied. That makes Trump’s decision not to push his campaign into a full-scale state blitz even more unusual. It also signals that Trump may miss an important opportunity to connect with the voters he needs to reach victory in November.

Typically, the final three months of a presidential campaign are Sprint to the finish linestarting with the party’s nominating convention in mid-summer and ending on Tuesday in early November.

Trump’s successful bid for the White House in 2016 is a good example of how this sprint has traditionally been conducted, and how effective it can be.

Eight years ago this month, Trump held more than 20 rallies across a dozen different states.

Between August 9 and 13 alone, Trump inspired huge crowds at seven large campaign rallies: two in battleground states such as North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania; The rally was held in Connecticut, a Democratic stronghold.

Trump will continue Flip Florida and Pennsylvania In November, Democrat Barack Obama won two states in 2012. ·Hillary Clinton.

2020, face-to-face campaign rallies Play on both sides has largely been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far this month, Trump has traveled to Atlanta rally August 3rd.

Trump did not attend back-to-back rallies like he did during his first campaign, and he went through a campaign event in July. assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania—and recently participated in multiple media interviews.

He gave interviews to controversial influencers Ardin Ross Via Monday’s live broadcast, he appeared on the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning and said he would be interviewed by Fox News Billionaire Tesla CEO Musk next week.

Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate Vance A more visible and traditional schedule was adopted in the campaign.

On his way to an event in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Vance defended Trump’s decision to abandon the August blitz, telling reporters that he and Trump were deploying a “divide and conquer strategy.”

“Of course, one of the things you have to do is get out there and talk to people and talk to reporters,” senator explain. “Of course, the last thing you want to do is raise resources. I know the president is busy doing that.”

“Obviously we do events together sometimes,” Vance said. “But I think we’re going to take advantage of the fact that we have two guys who can both go out and get the message across.”

To counter Harris and Walz’s campaign this week, Vance spoke in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday. He also planned to hold two events in North Carolina on Thursday, but they were postponed due to tropical storms.

However, none of Vance’s campaign events this week were billed as rallies. Instead, the remarks were presented as “addresses to the media,” attended by only a small group of staff, reporters and supporters.