Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared Sunday that he will remain true to himself and to his own personality as he makes his final push toward defeating Hillary Clinton in November.
Trump disputed the accuracy of a recent New York Times piece about a supposed meeting in which Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband, campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Chris Christie coached Trump to be more conventional after he fired his successful primary campaign manager Cory Lewandowski.
Regardless of what actually happened in that meeting, or how important it actually was, Trump clearly struggled for a while to navigate the contrast between the explosive populism of his once-in-a-lifetime campaign and the new pressures of being a major party nominee. In particular, Trump’s initial non-endorsement of Paul Ryan in Wisconsin agitated Republicans in Washington, D.C., to say the very least.
Trump is clearly not going to play the game anymore.
With 84 days to go, Trump realizes that his best chance is to tune out the biased media to some degree and just focus on getting his message out to as many people as possible.
Insiders think that this election can and will be won on the ground.
The Clinton Campaign is weak in many spots, and Trump has the opportunity to win enough swing states to reach 270 electoral votes. But the campaign needs to run a strong ground game focused on voter registration, directing people to the polls, keeping supporters on email and mailing lists to get regular updates, and giving the green light to activists to do what they do best.
Some of those activists will be working their hearts out, regardless of whether or not the campaign formally reaches out to them.
Instead of getting trapped in the daily back-and-forth cable news uproar about his various comments, Trump seems committed to riling people up at his rallies with his trademark politically incorrect anti-establishment monologues, as he did in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Trump’s next speech in Ohio on Monday will be crucially important.
The next 84 days will test this man more than anything he’s probably ever done. The next 84 days will determine the future of the United States of America.
As his campaign hopefully gets focused on the ground, it will have its best weapon firing on all cylinders.
Trump will be Trump.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.