Aug.16

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump Campaign: Lewandowski Is Back; Can Manafort Be Far Behind?

Let us now make a few observations:

• The Trump campaign is not going very well right now.
  
  
• Whatever the issue or issues might be, they are NOT Trump's fault. And they never are—just ask him.
  
  
• He's open to scapegoating his campaign management, or others in his orbit, but firing Chris LaCivita or dumping J.D. Vance would be a bad look. Not that Trump won't do it, but "something that could hurt my image as the world's foremost political genius" tends to be the last option for him.
  
  
• His only successful campaign, back in 2016, was run predominantly by Corey Lewandowski.

All of these things being the case, is it a surprise that Trump '24 announced yesterday that it had brought Lewandowski on board as a senior adviser (despite his now lengthy history of sexual misconduct)? Also returning are a bunch of lower-level operatives from the past, including Tim Murtaugh, Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz.

We very seriously doubt that this will be the last major change to the leadership of Trump '24, for two reasons. First, Lewandowksi is not likely to be able to right the ship, since the main thing wrong with the campaign is Donald Trump (see above). Second, there are now an awful lot of cooks in the kitchen. Given the egos that are characteristic of high-level political operatives, we foresee lots and lots of friction.

And as long as we are on the subject of key players in Trump's orbit, Russell Vought is a key contributor to Project 2025. And, in news that broke yesterday, he's become the latest Trumper to be secretly (but legally) recorded saying things that were not meant for public consumption.

Vought thought he was speaking to a couple of hard-right evangelicals, but they were actually a pair of British journalists. It apparently did not occur to him that evangelicals do not generally have British accents. In any case, with great relish, Vought talked about the many executive orders and political appointees that he and the Heritage Organization have teed up for a second Trump presidency. He also said that Trump "blessed" their efforts and added that, "[Trump]'s very supportive of what we do." If you are interested, here is the footage (with some commentary from CNN). If you want to skip the commentary and go directly to Vought himself, he starts at 1:56.

We are currently unsure what role Project 2025 will play in the campaign. The plan is clearly unpopular with a sizable majority of voters, and a liability for Trump, if he can be connected to it. However, he is, of course, trying to pretend he doesn't know anything about it. The question is whether the Harris/Walz campaign and/or its allied PACs, will try to convince the American public that is a lie (which it most certainly is). If so, then the footage of Vought should be very helpful. (Z)