While his criminal trial unfolded in May, Donald Trump routinely complained that the legal proceedings represented “election interference.” To back up his rhetoric, the former president had a habit of telling reporters, “I’d like to be campaigning.”
As the argument went, the Republican candidate wanted to be on the campaign trail — holding rallies, meeting voters, attending fundraisers, doing photo-ops, etc. — and the fact that he was stuck in a criminal courtroom a few days per week was interfering with his electoral opportunities.
There were, however, a couple of glaring problems with the claim. For one thing, criminal proceedings aren’t simply put on indefinite hold when a defendant seeks elected office. For another, there were plenty of off-days in the trial, when Trump could’ve held campaign events. He didn’t bother.
Three months later, the trial has run its course — a jury found the Republican guilty of 34 felonies — and the GOP nominee still isn’t maintaining much of a campaign schedule. CNBC reported:
Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to stay off the presidential campaign rally circuit until after the Democratic National Convention, which ends Aug. 22. The Republican nominee’s schedule this month defies conventional campaign strategy, and draws a sharp contrast with Trump’s schedule in August of 2016, the last time he ran a successful race for the White House.
In August 2016, the then-candidate held 27 campaign rallies across 15 states. As August 2024 gets underway, Trump has held one event so far, and over the last six weeks, he’s only held eight. The Washington Post ran a related analysis, further documenting just how much the Republican candidate has slowed his schedule down this year.
Asked at his meandering press conference about his light schedule, the former president called it a “stupid question,” before adding that he doesn’t believe he has to campaign to win. “I’m leading by a lot,” Trump said.
The problem, of course, is that the line of inquiry wasn’t stupid — and he isn’t leading by a lot.
The result is a good question for which there is no obvious answer: Why isn’t Trump campaigning more?
Perhaps he has no idea how competitive the 2024 race has become. Maybe he’s become lazier. Perhaps he’s come to believe holding campaign events doesn’t help much. Maybe there’s an undisclosed health issue. It’s impossible to say for sure from a distance.
Whatever the explanation, Trump’s next campaign event is in Montana — which is nowhere near a battleground state — not because he’s trying to give his campaign a boost, but because of a personal vendetta against a Democratic senator who bothered him six years ago.
It’s quite a strategy.
