Donald Trump reveals his strategy for the battleground states

Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he has held relatively few public campaign events in recent weeks because he is “a big lead,” wants to wait out the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22 and is doing a lot of radio and television interviews.

The Republican presidential candidate offered the explanation during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has held just one public rally so far this month, in Atlanta on Aug. 3, though he plans to attend another Friday night in Bozeman, Montana, to support a Republican Senate candidate.

By contrast, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have held rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan this week and plan to hold more rallies Friday in Arizona and Saturday in Nevada.

According to a CNBC News analysis, Trump held 27 campaign rallies in August 2016, when he was first running for president, spanning 15 states.

Addressing Trump during Thursday’s press conference, a reporter told him: “You haven’t had a public campaign event for almost a week, tomorrow you’re in Montana, which is not a key state, some of your allies have expressed concern that you’re not taking this race seriously, particularly at a time…”

At that point, Trump interrupted him and said: “What a stupid question.” But the journalist continued: “If there is enthusiasm on the other side, why haven’t they campaigned this week?”

Trump responded: “Because I’m winning so much and because I’m letting their convention go ahead and I’m doing so much campaigning, I’m doing an enormous amount of filming here; we have commercials on a level that I don’t think anybody’s ever done before.

“Also, in certain cases… I see many of you in the room where I’m talking to you on the phone, I’m talking on the radio, I’m talking on the television. The television is coming in here. Excuse me, what are we doing now?”

Referring to Harris, Trump continued: “She will not hold a press conference. You know why? Because she can’t hold a press conference. She doesn’t know how to hold a press conference, she’s not smart enough to hold a press conference and, I’m sorry, we need smart people to run this country because our country has never been in this danger before, both economically and from an external perspective.”

Trump later added that he would “go to certain places to help certain senators get elected,” saying he would do so in states like Wyoming and Montana, which are widely regarded as solidly Republican for presidential elections.

Newsweek Magazine I reached out to representatives from the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email outside regular business hours on Friday.

On July 13, Trump narrowly survived an assassination when a gunman opened fire at a rally he was hosting near Butler, Pennsylvania. The former president was slightly wounded in the ear and one rally-goer was killed, as was the gunman, who returned fire from law enforcement.

More than a dozen polls conducted since Harris became the The Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee after President Biden dropped out of the race put her ahead of Trump. This week, Harris has emerged as the favourite to win the 2024 presidential race with leading bookmakers Betfair and Paddypower.