Donald Trump’s beleaguered campaign team woke up to another setback on Sunday as the president began his second full day in hospital: a new national poll showing their candidate 14 points behind his challenger Joe Biden with less than a month until the election day.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey indicating a 53-39% advantage for the Democratic party’s nominee injected urgency for Trump’s advisers already scrambling to find a strategy for the final weeks of the campaign until 3 November.
It was becoming clear that Vice-President Mike Pence, who has tested negative for coronavirus, and members of Trump’s family, once they emerge from quarantine, will assume leading roles at virtual, then in-person rallies until or unless Trump himself recovers in time to resume campaigning.
“It’s important that our campaign vigorously proceeds,” Trump campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes said on Fox News Sunday.
“The Maga (Make America Great Again) movement is bigger than just President Trump. He’s instrumental of course but he is not the only key element. The other people, including of course the vice-president, campaign people, millions of regular Americans need to step up and to some degree fill the void that is left because our champion, our main instrument, is not able at this moment to vigorously campaign.”
Pence has public campaign events planned in Arizona, Nevada and Washington DC, and will travel to Salt Lake City for Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, at which the Trump team is looking for a strong performance.
The NBC poll showing Biden widening his lead over Trump was taken immediately after last Tuesday’s tumultuous first presidential debate in Cleveland, at which an argumentative president constantly interrupted both his rival and the moderator Chris Wallace.
Jason Miller, another senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said he had “no concerns” about Pence travelling and campaigning.
“We’re in a campaign, we have a month to go, we see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris out there campaigning,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“He’s going to have a full aggressive schedule, as will the first family, Don, Eric, Ivanka. We have a number of our supporters, our coalition, Black Voices for Trump, Latinos for Trump, the whole operation Maga will be deploying everywhere.
“We can’t hide from this virus forever, we have to take it head on [and] as soon as we’re able to get back out there in person we’ll do so,” he added.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaigning since Trump’s hospitalisation on Friday night has been low key. On Sunday, pool reporters covering the former vice-president at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, were informed of a “lid” – the formal announcement of the end of any public appearances or statements for the day – at 9.16am.
The Biden campaign announced on Friday that it was suspending negative messages attacking the president while he was in hospital, although Amy Klobuchar, Democratic senator for Minnesota, said on Sunday that did not mean Trump’s handling of the pandemic, or his economic record, were off limits.
“Not discussions about Covid, when you have 7 million people who have had this virus,” Klobuchar said on Fox News Sunday when Wallace asked her what subjects Biden would not discuss.
“[Biden] has said, ‘Look, I want the president to be back, he wants to debate him more, he wants him to have a speedy recovery. It isn’t about politics or partisanship, but certainly the pandemic, the effect it has had on people’s lives, how they have miscalculated in this administration, of course that’s on the table.”
Despite Sunday’s early cessation of campaign activity, Biden’s team has said it has no plans to scale back events as long as the candidate and those around him continue to test negative for Covid-19.
“Joe Biden will be at that debate,” senior campaign adviser Symone Sanders said of the second presidential debate scheduled for 15 October in Miami. “We are hoping that President Trump can participate.”
Some political analysts believe Trump’s hospital stay will be further damaging on his campaign following the damage wrought by a poor debate performance.
“I’ve had conversations with Republicans working in swing states around the country and they are alarmed,” Steve Hayes, founder and chief executive of The Dispatch, told Fox News Sunday.
“It’s not just affecting President Trump. People look at the debate performance negatively but it’s also starting to affect Republicans down ballot. If this current trajectory continues through November the third, we’re going to be talking about a lot more Republican senators at risk than we’re talking about right now.”
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