President Trump is relaunching his reelection bid less than five months before Election Day, using his first rally since the coronavirus put political gatherings on ice to jolt a stalled campaign and reclaim the offensive from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Trump’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his first since March 2, comes one year after kicking off his reelection campaign in Orlando, Florida. Tacitly acknowledging the president’s deteriorated standing amid a pandemic, economic decline, and civil unrest, the Trump campaign is moving to cut into Biden’s lead and reframe the contest. The celebration in Tulsa promises all of the extravagances that marked the beginning of the president’s quest for a second term last June in Florida.
“This is the first reawakening of the presidential contest because you haven’t had any kind of public rallies or public meetings for the past three months,” said John Couvillon, a Republican pollster in Louisiana.
The Trump campaign is hosting an outdoor entertainment festival in Tulsa for the thousands expected to gather outside the arena before the rally and flying in a planeload of prominent Republicans to amplify the president’s message.
But the campaign is ditching the “Keep America Great” slogan it had been using. The Tulsa rally was stamped “Make America Great Again,” a reversion to the iconic moniker of Trump’s 2016 campaign. The change was another example of a campaign reset after the coronavirus decimated the job market and George Floyd’s death roiled American communities.
Brian Lanza, a Republican operative who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign, described the moves as a natural fit with the president’s focus on reducing unemployment by encouraging cities and states to accelerate the reopening of their economies after months in pandemic lockdown.
“It’s the reopening,” Lanza said. “You have a grand opening, which was last year, Trump cutting the ribbon of the campaign. Then the world was put on pause because of the virus, and now, Trump is back and reopening the election cycle.”
Trump is most at home in front of large, friendly crowds. The rallies are confidence builders for him and the campaign in the face of troublesome poll numbers and a crucial aspect of his campaign’s voter turnout strategy. “When President Trump holds a rally, he generates a level of enthusiasm previously unseen in American politics, as evidenced by the million-plus sign-ups for this weekend’s rally in Oklahoma,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said.
But Biden has grabbed a sizable lead in most national polls and netted small advantages in surveys of the key battleground states. Some Republican insiders, despite misgivings about Trump’s rallies generally, see the president’s return to vigorous, public campaigning as a practical solution to problems that have plagued his campaign since the coronavirus froze in-person political activities.
Republican operatives and election officials watched in frustration as Trump, in their view, failed to capitalize on the political benefits of crisis leadership. Their hope is that getting Trump on the road after three months essentially stuck in Washington will provide a more acceptable backdrop for his provocative political style than the corridors of the capital.
“The rally stage is a lot more comfortable place for him than the White House press room, and that’s what had taken its place for too long,” a veteran Republican strategist said.
Party strategists also express optimism an active Trump will draw a more favorable contrast with Biden, reengaging the GOP base and convincing gettable blocs of disaffected Republicans to return to the fold. The former vice president has been cautious about returning to the stump and continues to lean on virtual activities to engage voters and supporters. GOP operatives believe they can define him as not up to leading the United States in a crisis.
