The adage which is most memorable in politics next to Follow The Money is Follow The Ground Game, particularly in the last few weeks of an election. Remember I told you a few days ago that Donald Trump, curiously, had absolutely nothing on his calendar for October 25 and 26? That was the case. Then Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris had three memorable visits in blue wall states, just yesterday, and surprise surprise, Mango Mussolini is taking his Fascism Follies to Michigan — twice in fact. One appearance in Novi, the other one in Traverse City. Does that mean he’s given up on Wisconsin or Pennsylvania? Who knows? The only other rally on calendar, as we speak, is in New York, New York on October 27. Where he will be the last week before Election Day is anybody’s guess at this point.
And probably Team Trump doesn’t know either. The Harris/Walz campaign can tell you down to the nanosecond where those two candidates will be, but I believe that Team Trump has its ear to the ground and is trying to hear the tom toms or read the smoke signals and see where they need to go next.
The fact that Trump suddenly, overnight, ends up with two rallies in Michigan next week tells me that their internal polling system is doing a Robby the Robot number and crying, “Danger! Danger!” And when Team Trump gets around to posting the appearance calendar for the rest of the month, that, too, will tell you everything that you need to know about what holes Mango Mussolini is going to try to stop up in the last remaining days and hours of the campaign.
Team Trump is not all that flush with cash. Sad but true. He can’t pay for a lot of venues, particularly in cities where he hasn’t paid his bills from 2020. Trump has a nasty habit of not paying his bills. His MO since the Roy Cohn days has been to stiff people and let them come and sue and then it ends up getting settled out of court. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with municipalities and cities that you need to visit again, you can’t burn them and expect everything to be nice nice the second time around.
So those two factors alone, a bad payment history for security and low cash reserves, may dictate where Trump goes next. In all events, those factors plus the internal polling will determine where Trump goes next.
He has one of two paths. It will be interesting to see which one he follows: 1. Blue Wall. Trump may try to fortify his situation in blue wall states, or 2. He may try the Sun Belt. And if it’s the sunbelt states, that will be telling. Ostensibly he’s leading comfortably in Georgia and Arizona. Mebbe. Mebbe not. He was in Georgia twice this week, usually not a sign of comfort, especially in the last two weeks of an election. And don’t be surprised in the least if Wisconsin is next on Trump’s agenda. As a matter of fact, if he’s got a lick of sense, he’ll cancel the New York rally and go to Madison. Look at what Barack Obama and Tim Walz are doing in Madison tonight.
Just. Holy. Shit. This is the crowd for Barack Obama and Tim Walz in Madison, Wisconsin. 🙌🙏💪👏👊🌊🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Mb9xHPxZiK
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) October 22, 2024
Trump can lose Pennsylvania if he keeps both Georgia and North Carolina. Or if he could pick up either Wisconsin or Michigan. Clearly he’s trying to pick up Michigan. And if he can keep Arizona on top of that, then he’s got a chance. But if he loses either of those three states, it’s problem time.
The tension heightens. I wouldn’t want to be a ketchup bottle right now. Or a coffee pot or a TV set. Not in the mood Donald is in.
He can’t be everywhere.
We can, we’ve got more people. Lots of people and lots of policies
He doesn’t, there’s only him, his whole campaign is him, hate, and fear.
Besides the reasons you listed, it appears he is following what they are doing. Not a good look if you claim to be leading.
I love to see the full arenas/stadiums for Harris/Waltz/surrogates as well as the unbridled enthusiasm. don old/old diaper don cannot fill up these venues for several reasons: money that he owes them, he cannot afford to pay all the people who show up, and he’s too tired to do that large an audience. He’d rather sway to stupid songs (no offense to Ave Maria but who plays that at a rally…..?) for 40 minutes.