Trump’s 2024 Campaign Slow to Start, Quick to Stumble

Trump’s 2024 Campaign Slow to Start, Quick to Stumble

Former President Donald Trump is a little more than a month into his bid to win back his party, redeem his presidency and take control of the White House for another term as commander in chief.

But you’d hardly know it.

Since Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign shortly before the midterm elections in a scripted, subdued speech at his Mar-a-Lago club, he has held no major campaign events or rallies and has been nearly absent from large media outlets and other platforms, even as skepticism from within his own party grows stronger.

That absence has persisted in the face of a number of external blows and buzz, including criminal fraud convictions against his sprawling real estate company, the Trump Organization, last month and, most recently, a decision this week by the House Ways and Means Committee to publicly release six years of his tax returns that he has zealously fought to keep hidden.

Trump has instead taken to his social media platform, Truth Social, interspersing more run-of-the-mill political commentary with dense paragraphs of insult-ridden and conspiracy-laden text – some in all-caps – and reposting memes, including those referencing the sprawling far-right conspiracy theory, QAnon.

And last week, a “major announcement” that generated anticipation about a potential campaign event or news turned out in the end to be the rollout of Trump-themed non-fungible tokens, or what he called “digital trading cards.”

The cards – which feature flattering cartoon drawings of Trump as an astronaut, superhero and NASCAR driver, for example – sold for $99 each. Nestled deep within the fine print was a disclaimer that the cards and the revenue they generated were unconnected with the campaign. The money instead is going to a third-party, for-profit corporation.

The rollout of the cards, which included a dramatic video where lasers shot out of the eyes of a cartoon depiction of Trump, inspired near-instant mockery and derision – and accusations of scamming. Even some of Trump’s staunchest allies on the right appeared exasperated.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Steve Bannon, former White House adviser under Trump and now far-right commentator, said on a right-wing television show, noting all of Trump’s aides who were involved in the venture should be fired.

“I supported Trump for years, but this is ridiculous,” John Cardillo, a well known conservative pundit and Trump supporter said on Twitter after the NFT announcement.

The trading card rollout underscored and amplified in the following days concerns about Trump’s slow campaign start and fueled criticism that Trump appeared unmotivated, unserious, and uncommitted to a presidential run – and it capped off a month of growing criticism, major scandals, legal woes and polling troubles for Trump.

Trump’s slow, odd start coincided, paradoxically, with a pair of high-profile scandals of his own making, generating weeks of headlines and causing headaches for other Republican politicians. Meanwhile, polls continue to roll out showing his falling stock within the GOP, and Justice Department investigations into his actions continue.

It has all conspired to paint a picture of an increasingly ostracized, isolated Trump and of a campaign not brimming with early-days energy but one facing headwinds that continue to grow stronger, stuck in a hole that Trump continues to dig deeper.

A Slow, Rocky Start

Trump’s lack of events this far into his official campaign stands in contrast to his past runs.

In 2015, Trump was headlining an event in Iowa just hours after he rode down the now-infamous “golden escalator” and announced his candidacy for presidency. In 2017, Trump filed paperwork for a reelection campaign days after taking office. Two weeks later, he drew 9,000 people to a campaign rally in Florida.

He has, too, largely shirked away from other political events recently. Despite still nominally holding the position of GOP standard-bearer, Trump barely participated in the Georgia Senate runoff amid warnings from other Republicans to stay away. He held a phone rally for his handpicked Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, the night before the election; Walker went on to lose to incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat.

That lack of participation likely helped Walker, despite his loss, says Brian Robinson, former spokesperson for former Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and current GOP political analyst and communications specialist.

“Georgia's general election electorate is ready to move on,” Robinson says.

But even as Trump retreated from public events, he continued to make headlines with a pair of high-profile scandals.

Just more than a week after announcing his candidacy, Trump had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with rapper Kanye West, known as “Ye,” who has made virulently antisemitic comments, and Nick Fuentes, whom the FBI has described as a white supremacist, prompting sharp rebuke from even the most senior congressional Republicans and some of his allies.

RECOMMEND;Kenyan Bird Onon That Flew From Kenya to China Set New Record

And a week later, Trump said while promoting the conspiracy that the 2020 election was fraudulent that parts of the Constitution should be abolished, kicking off yet another round of response and criticism.

Headwinds and Falling Poll Numbers

Trump’s scandals dominated political conversation for several weeks, forcing Republicans into a position where they had to respond to questions about the former president’s activities – some issuing full-throated condemnations of Trump’s dinner, others condemning antisemitism and the dinner guests more broadly without mentioning Trump, and still others remaining silent, running away from reporters’ questions.

The scandals did not accrue any goodwill for Trump among the rest of the party. Most members have refrained from splashy endorsements, instead hedging on reporters’ questions about who they will support and insisting on seeing the primary field first in a glaring sea change from the robust followership he has boasted over the last eight years as the de facto head of the party.

Trump’s campaign garnered skepticism even before it was official. Some Republicans began questioning Trump’s role as the leader of the GOP as soon as it became clear that the “red wave” of the midterm elections never materialized. Republicans just barely gained control of the House and failed to take back the Senate, while suffering glaring defeats on the state level. Several of Trump’s most high-profile candidates lost crucial races, as voters appeared to reject the Trumpian strain of GOP ideology, including the conspiracy about the 2020 election.

“It’s just one more data point in an overwhelming body of data that the Trump obsession is very bad for Republicans, but normal Republicans are doing extremely well,” retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania told CNN at the time.