The Trump campaign seems to be building its eleventh-hour strategy around efforts to highlight contrasting energies between the president and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump called out Biden on Monday afternoon at a rally in the swing state city of Prescott, Arizona, hammering the former vice president in front of an audience of thousands for an unconventionally stationary ground game.
“Can you believe it? He’s going lid,” Trump said. “You know what lid means?”
“Lid means a politician goes into, I guess, a garbage can or something. The lid. They put the lid on it. Right? I guess, I don’t know, maybe it’s something else,” the president added.
“That means he’s going to stay in the basement all day.”
With little more than two weeks remaining until Election Day, Biden on Monday morning called a lid scheduled to last until Thursday, when he will face off with Trump in the second and final presidential debate.
It was not the first time the former vice president has officially put on hold all travel and event operations this cycle, with the Biden campaign reportedly calling at least nine such stoppages last month, according to The Federalist.
Polling aggregates from RealClearPolitics indicate the frequent lids have done little to move the dial against Biden, however, as Trump trails by roughly 9 percentage points nationally.
Biden also leads the most recent polling in each of the must-win battleground states — but the president has gained no shortage of ground in recent weeks, with margins under 4 percent in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Trump was quick to dismiss such polling Monday, reminding the Northern Arizona crowd he had similarly trailed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by every metric, throughout the course of the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re in second place in Arizona?” Trump asked. “No, we’re in first place in Arizona.”
“Same thing happened last time, only worse. It was crazy. And last time, I never did it before. So, I believed them. Then what happened is we had the day and I was down in nine states that I had to win. Right? I was down in all nine on Election Day and we won all nine, right?” Trump said.
“They said, ‘This will be a very poor day for Donald Trump. This is going to be a rough day for Donald Trump, down in nine states … Oh, my God! He just won Wisconsin. He just won Michigan. He just won Arizona. He just won Pennsylvania. What’s going on?’
“They were not having a good day,” the president added.
Conservative campaign operatives have leaned heavily on such claims throughout the cycle, suggesting the polls had failed, at every turn, to account for varying levels of energy and excitement between the two candidates and their respective bases.
Spokeswoman Emma Hall, for her part, told The Western Journal in a statement that Trump’s Monday rally in Prescott was an example of just that, energizing swing-state voters with yet another personal visit and messaging tailored specifically to them.
“President Trump is once again bringing his case directly to Arizona voters with his sixth trip to the Grand Canyon State this cycle,” Hall said.
“A far cry from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ 11th-hour visit that drew zero supporters.”
“From securing the border, cutting taxes, and negotiating historic trade deals that put Americans first, Arizonans know that President Trump has followed through on his promise to Make America Great Again and will soundly re-elect him come November,” she added.