With tight contests in all seven battleground states, the candidates are pressing for a few thousand votes that could sway the outcome of the entire election.
Listen to this article · 9:15 min Learn more
- Share full article
Former President Donald Trump made phone calls to voters after a town hall event in Michigan last month.
As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump begin the final 30-day push for the White House, they are locked in a neck-and-neck race from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt.
With polling averages showing all seven battleground states nearly tied, many Democrats believe their biggest advantage may be an extensive ground game operation that their party has spent more than a year building across the country. Mr. Trump’s campaign thinks that recent events — the escalating conflict in the Middle East and deadly hurricanes that have killed more than 200 people across the Southeast — will give them an edge in the final weeks.
In some ways, the two approaches mirror the final days of the 2016 race, when Hillary Clinton’s campaign boasted about a massive, data-driven field organization while Mr. Trump pressed a national message based on stoking anti-immigrant sentiment and improving the economy with a relatively meager staff and almost no field operation in the key states. Mr. Trump, of course, prevailed, helped by the F.B.I. director’s reopening of an inquiry into the Democratic nominee’s emails.
This time, Democrats have no such overconfidence. Although Mr. Trump and his party have lost or underperformed in every major election since then, many Democrats believe this year is one they could lose.
“Anybody would be a fool to write Trump off,” said Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who ran for president in 2020. “I think she’s going to win, but am I absolutely sure she’s going to win? No. The 2016 experience taught all of us that you can’t count this guy out.”
ImageMr. Trump’s campaign thinks that recent events will give them an edge in the final weeks by cementing their central campaign message that Kamala Harris is unprepared to lead.Credit…Michael Swensen for The New York Times
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Source: nytimes.com
