(Bloomberg) -- The race for the White House will reach a fever pitch this week, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump battling for momentum — and attention — around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Harris spent Sunday on a bus tour through the battleground state of Pennsylvania, looking to grow the coalition that rallied around her candidacy after President Joe Biden upended the race a month ago by stepping aside. The president will headline Monday’s proceedings in Chicago, kicking off a week that will see top party officials and celebrities laud the newly minted Democratic nominee.
Trump, for his part, is planning an aggressive schedule that will see him visit the US-Mexico border, hold rallies in four key swing states, and sit for a series of interviews and press engagements. His aides described the push as an intentional effort to goad Harris into unscripted settings herself, in the hope that she could stumble – or revert back to the more liberal policy positions she espoused before joining Biden’s 2020 campaign as his running mate.
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The Republican needs to change the dynamic if he hopes to return to the White House. Harris held a 49% to 45% advantage in a Washington Post and ABC News poll released Sunday, rallying support from voters that had been disaffected by their choice between Biden and Trump.
As she toured Pennsylvania on Sunday, Harris looked to exploit that frustration, focusing her remarks on criticizing Trump.
“Anyone who is about beating down other people is a coward,” Harris told volunteers at a campaign office outside Pittsburgh.
Trump Strategy
Trump will seek to target Harris’ vulnerabilities with events focused on the economy, immigration and crime. In the same poll that gave Harris an advantage nationwide, voters favored the Republican candidate on the economy by a nine-point margin.
“While Harris dodges questions from the press and tries to walk-back her extreme policies like the Green New Scam and bans on American energy, President Trump and Senator Vance will bring their America First message to voters in battleground states across the country,” Trump aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
He’ll also engage in a favorite pastime — working the referees in the press corps. Trump is expected to sit for a series of interviews with reporters traveling with his campaign, in hopes of turning up pressure on Harris to do the same.
Indeed, just hours after Trump’s team announced his plans, Harris fielded questions from members of the press traveling alongside her – just one of a handful of times she’s done so since securing the nomination.
Harris used the occasion to defend her economic policy proposals – unveiled last week – from Republicans who argued that expanding tax credits for poor Americans and giving first-time homebuyers mortgage assistance would be too costly.
“What we’re doing in terms of the tax credits, we know that there’s a great return on investment,” Harris said. She said increasing home ownership would increase the property tax base, bringing for example more funding for schools.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, earlier had criticized her proposals as outside the mainstream.
“She’s going to the Soviet Union playbook to lower prices, called price control,” Graham said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Media Glare
The vice president’s time at the White House has been marred by occasional gaffes in interviews and unscripted settings, and Republicans are eager to produce a slip-up that could give Trump a foothold to reverse the course of the election. Harris has pledged to do a sit-down interview before the end of the month.
Still, Harris has largely focused her efforts through on-the-ground campaigning. During her tour of Western Pennsylvania, she met with volunteers at a phone bank, brought baked goods to firefighters, and stopped by the convenience store Sheetz to grab a bag of Doritos. And, she insisted, even promising polls didn’t mean she had the advantage in a race that remains on a knife’s edge.
Earlier: Harris Urges Supporters to ‘Fight’ as Trump Accelerates Campaign
“Consider us the underdog,” she said. “We have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people.”
Trump aides say he’s also committed to winning more voters. During his trip to Montezuma Pass, Arizona on Thursday Trump is expected to engage with the border patrol union and members of the sheriff’s department, including participating in a briefing accompanied by officials such as the county sheriff and Brandon Judd, a supporter who previously led the National Border Patrol Council.
Before heading to the border, Trump is expected to host a rally Monday in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state. Harris is conducting a weekend bus tour of the state before heading to Chicago for the convention.
Competing Events
On Tuesday, with Harris and running mate Tim Walz expected to attend an event in Milwaukee, Trump will deliver remarks on “crime and safety” in Howell, Michigan. On Wednesday, the day Walz plans to give his acceptance speech, Trump will hold a rally on national security in North Carolina. And after his border trip, Trump will attend a rally in Glendale, Arizona.
But even Trump’s allies acknowledge that to succeed, he’ll need to keep the focus on policy disagreements instead of personal attacks. Graham said his worry is that Trump — who at a rally on Saturday called Harris “a lunatic” and claimed he was better looking than her — might not do so.
Earlier: Trump Jabs Harris on Inflation Before Pivoting to Her Laugh
“His policies are good for America, and if you have a policy debate for president, he wins,” Graham said. “Donald Trump, the private – the provocateur, the showman – may not win this election.”
--With assistance from Stephanie Lai.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
