Jittery Trump bids to refloat his sagging White House re-election campaign

LESS than five months before voters decide his fate, President Donald Trump is confronting a vastly different political reality than he once envisioned.

For starters, if the election were held today, he’d likely lose.

The president, West Wing advisers and campaign aides have grown increasingly concerned about his re-election chances as they have watched Mr Trump’s standing take a pummelling – first over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and now during nationwide protests against racial injustice.

His Republican allies worry the president has achieved something his November foe has been unable to do: ignite enthusiasm in a Democratic Party base that has been lukewarm to former vice president Joe Biden.

Mr Trump was facing tougher political prospects even before the death last month of George Floyd, the black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto his neck.

Covid-19’s mounting human and economic tolls – and the president’s defiant response – cost him support among constituencies his campaign believes are key to victory.

His signature rallies had been frozen for months and his cash advantage over Mr Biden, while vast, was not growing as quickly as hoped since the pandemic put a halt to high-dollar fundraisers.

Internal campaign surveys and public polling showed a steady erosion in support for Mr Trump among seniors and in battleground states once believed to be leaning decisively in the president’s direction, according to six current and former campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The campaign recently launched a television ad blitz in Ohio, a state the president carried by eight percentage points four years ago. It also sees trouble in Arizona and warning signs in the once deeply Republican Georgia.

Aides have warned Mr Trump the renewed national interest in racial injustice and the president’s major “law and order” push have animated parts of the Democratic base – black and younger voters – whose lagging enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton in 2016 cleared the way for Mr Trump’s narrow victory.

Though outwardly confident, Mr Trump has complained to advisers about the perception he is losing to Mr Biden.

Late last month, the Trump campaign moved two veteran political aides into senior leadership roles, and last week brought in former communications chief Jason Miller as a senior adviser.

The White House seized on better-than-expected employment data, selling it as a sign of a postpandemic economic comeback the president’s team considers crucial to victory in November.

Mr Trump has been hankering for a return to his old mainstay of largescale rallies this summer. But aides have cautioned that it could be risky to fill an arena, creating the potential for negative news stories if the virus were found to have spread at a campaign event.