Trump campaign blames glowing media coverage of Harris for her ‘extended honeymoon’

Republicans brace for further ‘short-lived’ poll slump

Donald Trump’s campaign has blamed glowing media coverage for Kamala Harris’s “extended honeymoon” as it braces for a further slump in the polls.
Toby Fabrizio, the campaign’s top pollster, conceded that Ms Harris would increase her lead over the Republican even further in the wake of the Democratic national convention (DNC), but said this would be short-lived.
Nevertheless, Trump is reportedly worried about his faltering performance since Joe Biden ducked out of the presidential race, and believes he could lose the election without a radical campaign overhaul.
In a memo circulated to media on Saturday, Mr Fabrizio downplayed Ms Harris’s recent surge in the polls and put it down to a Harris honeymoon.
According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, she leads her rival by 3.6 per cent nationally, up from 0.4 per cent a month ago.
Many Republican commentators have dismissed the vice-president’s popularity as a “sugar high” that would quickly disappear, but Mr Fabrizio suggested this had lasted longer than expected thanks to favourable media coverage.
The veteran Republican pollster said: “We’ve certainly had a front row seat to the ‘honeymoon’. In fact, the media decided to extend the honeymoon for over four weeks now.
“However, post-DNC we will likely see another small (albeit temporary) bounce for Harris in the public polls.”
“Post-convention bounces are a phenomenon that happens after most party conventions.”
He noted that Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose the 2016 election, led Trump by seven points after she accepted her party’s nomination.
Mr Fabruzio added that most coverage was concentrating on national polling when results in a handful of swing states were the key to winning the election.
He said: “We need to keep our eye on the ball – that is the polling in our target states.
“Our goal is to get to 270 [electoral college votes] and winning these states is how we do it. We’ll let the media make mountains out of molehills, while we keep driving forward.”
James Carville, Bill Clinton’s presidential election-winning campaign manager in 1992, urged Democrats not to put too much stock in nationwide polls and cautioned his party against complacency.
He added: “The other thing is Trump traditionally, when he’s on the ballot, chronically under-polls.”
Trump had appeared to be cruising to a second term in the White House while running against Mr Biden, after the Democrat’s dire performance in the presidential debate and a string of subsequent gaffes.
However, he has struggled to find his footing against Ms Harris, whom Mr Biden endorsed after three weeks of pressure to drop out of the race. “It feels like he’s lost his mojo,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House spokeswoman, told the Washington Post.
Trump is now overhauling his campaign after conceding that he could lose to Ms Harris in November’s election without dramatically changing course, Politico reports.
As part of a planned counter-offensive, he has built bridges with Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, regaining an important ally in the battleground state.
Trump aides are reported to have extended an olive branch before Mr Kemp said he would work to win the state for the former president. “We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House,” he declared on Thursday.
Moments later, Trump, who a fortnight ago derided Mr Kemp as “Little Brian” and blamed him for his 2020 election loss, thanked him for “all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important”.
Trump faced a number of attacks on abortion rights during the DNC – including during Ms Harris’ headline speech – and appears to have softened his line as the vice-president shores up support among female voters.
On Friday, he wrote on social media that he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights”.
Two days later, JD Vance, his running mate, said that Trump would veto any national abortion ban passed by Congress.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is planning a busier campaign schedule in the swing states, having taken a more laid-back approach while Mr Biden was in the race.
Having appeared in five states in five days while the DNC was underway, he will make two appearances in Michigan this coming week followed by events in Wisconsin on Thursday and Pennsylvania on Friday.