Donald Trump is facing doubts from Republicans, including strategists and donors, about his strategy to win back the White House as they fret that he will be unable to recover the momentum lost to Kamala Harris in recent weeks.
Republicans are not panicking about Trump’s chances but are anxious about his failure to mount effective attacks on the vice-president and his embrace of fringe politicians such as Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard.
“If he continues down this path, he’ll lose,” Eric Levine, a New York bankruptcy lawyer and a prominent Republican donor, told the Financial Times. “The only way you’re going to get those voters who are going to Harris . . . is to change strategy.”
The concerns among allies are a remarkable shift from last month, when Trump had a comfortable polling lead over President Joe Biden and his narrow escape from assassination left supporters convinced he would sweep to victory in November’s vote.
But Harris has mobilised her Democratic party’s base since replacing Biden, overtaken Trump in polls and benefited from a surge in donations, putting him in a bind with little more than two months left in the campaign.
John Feehery, a Republican strategist, described members of his party as “nervous” about Trump. “There’s concern that the Republicans have to run a . . . very tough race and very close race.”
Feehery said worries within the party spanned Trump’s ability to deliver a disciplined message, the effectiveness of the Republican ground game and the “money and effort” the campaign would need to spend to define Harris in negative terms.
Trump has sought to depict Harris as a radical socialist — labelling her as “Comrade Kamala” — as well as “Laughing Kamala”, and as a political chameleon who keeps changing her policy positions.
“I think [Trump is] throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall, which he always does during campaigns, to see what sticks,” said Feehery.
Trump has also not helped himself with personal attacks — including questioning Harris’s race — as well as rants and bizarre and off-colour posts on social media. On Thursday he reposted a sexist post about Harris and Hillary Clinton.
He triggered accusations of antisemitism when he lashed out at Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, calling him the “highly overrated Jewish governor”. He also assailed Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp, who resisted Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, before praising him.
Trump brought back some advisers from previous campaigns earlier this month, including his 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, as he sought to regain some impetus.
Harris is now 3.7 percentage points ahead of Trump in national polls, according to the Financial Times tracker, more than erasing Biden’s deficit. She is also ahead in many battleground states.
“The dominant mood among Republicans, based on the last month, has been one of frustration . . . her campaign has been allowed to coast for a month and get a free pass,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. “The best time to define her was right out of the gate.”
“Trump has signalled he’s going to get back on offence and try to do more to define Harris, so we’ll see if Republicans start to execute a more co-ordinated campaign and get some momentum back.”
Some Republican donors and operatives close to Trump remain upbeat, saying the race will shift to him again as Harris’s policies on the economy and immigration are scrutinised ahead of their debate on September 10.
A memo last week from Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio said Harris’s momentum following the Democratic convention would prove shortlived.
“Most polls had John McCain up 2 to 4 points on Barack Obama in 2008 the week after the [Republican National Convention]. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 7 points on President Trump after her convention . . . We all know how those ended up. These bumps do not last,” Fabrizio wrote.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said, “the Harris honeymoon is coming to an end as more and more Americans realise how dangerously liberal Kamala Harris truly is”.
Trump has “the message, enthusiasm, ground game and war chest necessary to win on November 5”, she added.
Bryan Lanza, a former Trump aide at Washington lobby firm Mercury, said the campaign was in a “good position” considering “seven weeks of exceptional media coverage” for Harris.
“We really haven’t had a conversation about the direction of the country. We’ve had a conversation about the reset of the Democratic party. And Harris’s support is nowhere near level of Biden support in 2020.”
Omeed Malik, an investor in Republican pundit Tucker Carlson’s media ventures and Trump donor, argued Harris should be leading by 5-7 points following the Democratic convention, “and that’s not at all what’s happening”.
Malik helped orchestrate Kennedy’s endorsement last week, setting up a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and said the support from a scion of the Democratic dynasty had “blunted any momentum” for Harris.
But other Republican donors and strategists warned that support from Kennedy and Gabbard, known for embracing conspiracy theories and autocrats, and their addition to Trump’s transition team could backfire.
“For every one RFK or Tulsi Gabbard voter you get, you lose three regular Republicans, independents and women,” said Levine. “It’s one thing to have a big tent. But, I mean, sometimes the tent is so large it gets torn.”
