A Saturday report from The Daily Beast claims that President Donald Trump’s top political advisers are growing worried that a “nightmare scenario” is coming true as the president slips below 40 percent in the polls.
According to the publication, one senior White House official claimed earlier this month that this scenario is for Trump to fall under 40 percent in a “sustained string of public and private surveys,” which would signal disillusionment within his base of support.
Since then, multiple polls have shown Trump with support in the 30s, including a Fox News poll that put the president with 38 percent voter support and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with 50 percent. When The Daily Beast followed up with the same adviser, they appeared optimistic but wary.
“This is not where any of us wanted to be at this point [in the election], but there is still time… to make up the difference.”
Trump’s advisers allegedly blame the drop on the coverage of the George Floyd protests and Trump’s response to them. One source close to the White House claimed that Trump’s poll numbers always take a hit when race is “in the news cycle and dominating the conversation.”
According to White House officials, the team is banking on Trump’s approach to the economy to help him boost the polls. But without a significant economic stimulus or recovery, The Daily Beast claims that Trump’s options for a rebound are slim.
Earlier this month, David Cay Johnston suggested that, in addition to an economic rebound, Trump’s chances for re-election hinge on his ability to push the blame for coronavirus onto China and local U.S. officials and his ability to quell social unrest.
As for the latter, Trump appears to be having difficulty in recent weeks. Notably, the president initially announced his Tulsa rally on Juneteenth in a city that was home to one of what The Daily Beast called one of the “most savage massacres of Black people” in U.S. history.
“He subsequently claimed that he had made Juneteenth — which has long commemorated the end of slavery in the United States — ‘very famous’ because ‘nobody had ever heard of it,’” the report read.
A Friday report from CNN covered two sources who claimed that a Trump campaign meeting discussed a campaign restart as the president continues to struggle with his political standing amid a pandemic and widespread civil unrest.
The report claims that the restart will begin with a more optimistic message that Trump will allegedly be premiering at his Tulsa rally on Saturday.
