The last three weeks have been disastrous for failed ex-president Donald Trump, who has seen his polling advantage over Vice President Kamala Harris vanish, leaving him several points behind her in some polls.
In private, according to sources close to Trump, the convicted felon and 2024 GOP presidential nominee has been lashing out at Harris, often referring to her as “nasty” and a “bitch,” The New York Times reports.
Indeed, Mr. Trump has often been in a foul mood the past few weeks. He has ranted about Ms. Harris. He has called her “nasty,” on “Fox & Friends,” and a “bitch,” repeatedly, in private, according to two people who heard the remark on different occasions. (“That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala, and it’s not how the campaign would characterize her,” Mr. Cheung said.)
Trump has even begun lashing out at wealthy supporters who have created political action committees and stuffed them with millions of dollars for him to spend as he seeks a second term in office.
Mr. Trump stunned one of his wealthiest patrons, Miriam Adelson, the widow of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, by having an aide, Natalie Harp, fire off a series of angry text messages to Mrs. Adelson in Mr. Trump’s name, according to three people with knowledge of what took place.
The texts were particularly jarring because Mrs. Adelson and Mr. Trump had a friendly meeting just a week earlier at the Republican National Convention, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The texts complained about the people running Mrs. Adelson’s super PAC, Preserve America, into which she is pouring millions of dollars to support Mr. Trump.
Some of Trump’s inner circle have begun suggesting he make his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, the scapegoat and dump him as a way to reset his moribund campaign apparatus and signal to donors that he will do whatever it takes to right the ship. But those calls for Vance’s ouster have gone unheeded, with the ex-president suggesting that the Ohio senator is the one being called “weird,” not him.
“And, at the Aug. 2 fund-raiser, according to two people with knowledge of what took place, when a donor at the round-table discussion asked about Democrats trying to paint the Republican ticket as ‘weird,’ Mr. Trump replied: ‘Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.'”
How bad are the polls for Trump? Bad enough that it appears he could lose the normally red state of Ohio: “Two private polls conducted in Ohio recently by Republican pollsters — which Mr. Trump carried in 2020 with 53 percent of the vote — showed him receiving less than 50 percent of the vote against Ms. Harris in the state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.”
Bottom line: If Ohio goes for Harris — especially since she’s already leading or even with Trump in several other key battleground states — November 5 will be a popular and electoral vote landslide for Harris, dragging down Republicans in down-ballot races that would hand control of both Congress and the White House to Democrats. In other words, the election could be a referendum on Trump, and that’s not exactly a contest he’s going to win by using derogatory terms that alienate women, who just so happen to be the largest voting block in the country.
