Donald Trump and his Republican campaign now face a dramatically different election race than just three weeks ago, before the President of the United States of America (US) Joseph Biden dropped his bid for re-election in November.
Although they admit that polls show that the fight with US Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate of the ruling Democrats has intensified, they claim that the fundamentals of the race have not changed because voters are deeply resentful of the state of the US, especially the economy.
"We're witnessing some kind of out-of-body experience where reality is suspended for several weeks," Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio told reporters during a briefing in West Palm Beach on Thursday.
Trump repeated this during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club.
"The honeymoon period will end," he said, downplaying the size of the support Harris is attracting and lashing out at his new opponent. "Let me tell you: we have enthusiasm," he said firmly.
Trump campaign officials acknowledge that Harris has energized the Democratic base and that her team has taken the lead in fundraising. But they insist they have more than enough to do what they need to win.
The Trump campaign reported raising $138,7 million in July — far less than the staggering $310 million reported by Harris. Her campaign started in August with more money on hand.
With less than three months to go before the November election, senior Trump campaign officials are focused on a group of voters who can be persuaded and are believed to be key to victory. They say it's 11 percent of the electorate in key swing states in the US where it's not clear what voters will choose, the population is younger and the majority are disproportionately men with moderate views.
Although more than half are white, there are more non-whites, especially Asians and Hispanics, than in the general electorate.
These people are particularly frustrated with the economy, including their personal finances, and are pessimistic that things will improve with the current government.
"We're trying to get a very narrow circle of people going," Fabricio said.
Since these voters don't interact with traditional news outlets and don't follow cable TV but streaming services, the campaign is working to reach them in new ways.
"There's a reason we do podcasts. There's a reason we do Aidan Ross," Fabrizio said, referring to the controversial internet personality who ended an interview with the former president earlier this week by handing him a "Tesla Cybertruck" pickup emblazoned with images of Trump raising his fist after the assassination.
"There's a reason why we do all these things. You know what these people pay attention to? MMA (mixed martial arts), Aydin Ross," Fabrizio said.
Trump campaign officials acknowledge that the Democratic base is more motivated now than it was when Biden was the candidate. Harris, they say, is likely to do better than Biden with black voters, especially women and older men.
But they argue that Harris is doing little to attract voters. And they intend to spend the next 80-plus days portraying her as a radical liberal and as the current vice president of the United States, not as a change, by tying her to the most unpopular policies of the Biden administration.
"There's a lot more information about her that they don't know they're going to hear. And we're going to make sure they get it," Fabricio said.
By the end of the race, according to Trump's staff, neither candidate will be liked, but the voters will choose the candidate they believe will improve their economic conditions the most.
They pointed to a line Harris used to describe Trump's presidency -- "We're not going back" -- as particularly ill-conceived, given that some voters say things were better when Trump was in power than they are now.
Trump campaign aides said they now have staff on the ground in 18 states, ranging from critical battleground states to Democratic-leaning states like Virginia, which they hope to swing.
The campaign says it now has hundreds of paid staffers and more than 300 Trump and party offices open across many states. The Harris campaign says it has 1.500 paid staffers and 265 offices across the US.
But much of Trump's effort relies on volunteers and nonpartisan groups.
They're trying to implement a model they used successfully during the Iowa Republican primary last winter, where volunteer "caucus captains" were given a list of 10 neighbors they pledged to get out to the polls. The campaign credited the model with increasing response.
The "Trump Force 47" program is focused on targeting voters with low and medium propensity to vote. Volunteers will deal with promotion, writing postcards, phone banking and organizing their neighborhood.
So far, according to officials, 12.000 "captains" have been trained and given voter lists. An additional 30.000 have volunteered, and more than 2.000 are expected to be trained weekly between now and Election Day.
Much of the campaign's outreach will also rely on nonpartisan groups to conduct paid campaigning and polling thanks to new Federal Election Commission guidelines that allow campaigns to coordinate with nonpartisan groups in ways not previously allowed.
The Trump campaign says more than 1.000 paid voter researchers are on the ground in uncertain states, and they are working to register about 1,6 million targeted voters in those places.
The Harris campaign says it is growing its army of volunteers. In the first two weeks of her candidacy, they said, 200.000 volunteers joined the campaign and signed up for 29.000 voter activation shifts in the field and 197.000 phone shifts.
"The reality is that Donald Trump and his people were too late to create a program, and now they are struggling to catch up," said Dan Kaninen, the Democratic chief of staff for uncertain states.
For an election that is expected to be extremely close, he said, "it is absolutely essential to build an efficient and disciplined operation on the ground and to be able to be in the communities and build the trust and relationships for months that we already have, and the Trump campaign has that it just doesn't work".
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