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Trump ramps up rally strategy that may come with more risk than reward
www.nbcnews.com

Trump ramps up rally strategy that may come with more risk than reward

Despite now-daily campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has complained to aides that there are too few on the schedule, telling staffers Monday he plans to soon hold as many as five such events a day.

Politics

In President Donald Trump’s favored narrative of how elections are won and lost, the candidate who holds the most events with the biggest crowds wins.

"Every RALLY is BOFFO," he said in a Monday tweet about his confidence of winning re-election, telling campaign staffers on a call the same day that he was now more confident of winning than he was two weeks ago, when he appeared at no campaign events while recovering from Covid-19.

"He goes out, he gets no people at any of the rallies," Trump said of Democratic nominee Joe Biden at a Sunday campaign event in Nevada. "I go out, we get 35,000. 40,000, 25,000, 15,000. We go boom, 15,000, we get the biggest crowds in the history of politics. ... We get these massive crowds, he gets nobody and then they say we are tied."

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While none of the president's live events in the coronavirus era has come anywhere close to drawing those numbers, they remain the centerpiece of his campaign, with Trump leaning on them not just as a measure of where the contest stands but as a prime mover of the ultimate outcome.

Trump often tells the story of how he eked out a win in Michigan in 2016 by visiting the state on the eve of the election as he cites crowd size at this year's events as proof he will win again. Despite now-daily campaign rallies, he has complained to aides that there are too few on the schedule, telling staffers on a conference call Monday he plans to soon be doing as many as five such events a day.

Now, with two weeks to go, he heads into the final stretch of the race relying heavily on his rallies to change the dynamic of the contest — a risky strategy for a persistently unpopular candidate, and one that has failed to demonstrate success in moving voters into his column.