Trump campaign's closing message to voters: 'Harris broke it, Trump will fix it'
EXCLUSIVE: With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign is giving its closing message to voters: Vice President Harris "broke it" and former President Trump "will fix it," officials told Fox News Digital as they previewed their strategy for the final stretch.
Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with Trump campaign officials about the former president’s strategy to rally supporters to the ballot box on Nov. 5, or before, by focusing heavily on the economy and the crisis at the southern border.
"Kamala Harris for the last four years has wrecked the economy and the border," Trump campaign senior advisor Tim Murtaugh told Fox News Digital. "Donald Trump will fix both of them."
Murtaugh said that "the beauty of this election cycle is that everybody who is going to vote has lived through the Trump years and the Harris years."
"They have experienced both administrations. When Trump was president, the economy was fantastic, inflation was nonexistent, the border was secure, and the world was at peace," Murtaugh said. "By contrast, under Harris’ leadership, the economy is in shambles, inflation is still sky-high, our border has been erased, and the world, at large, is on fire."
Trump has relentlessly hammered home that message in stop after stop as he crisscrosses the country campaigning in the final weeks of the cycle, something his campaign believes has given him momentum over the vice president who they say has largely shifted her message to attacking the former president.
"Trump is talking about solving problems for Americans while Kamala Harris is focused exclusively on attacking him," a campaign official told Fox News Digital.
Harris on Tuesday accused Trump of seeking "unchecked power" and being "unhinged and unstable."
But the Trump campaign said the former president is "asking people to vote for something, while she is asking for people to vote against something."
"He is selling optimism and positive messages to fix the problems she and President Biden created," a campaign official said.
The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump leading Harris nationally by 2 points. Trump grabs 47% support among likely voters nationwide, with Harris at 45%, according to the WSJ survey- on a ballot that also includes third-party and independent candidates.
That's a switch from the Journal's previous national survey - conducted in late August - which indicated Harris with a two point edge.
The survey indicates views of Harris have turned more negative since August, with her favorable rating eight points underwater and her approval rating as vice president at 42%-54%. Meanwhile, views of Trump have improved, with voters approving of his past performance in the White House by a 52%-48% margin.
And the latest Fox News Poll shows Trump ahead of Harris 50% to 48% nationally.
"Donald Trump is leading all the battleground states, and the momentum and polling averages continue to move in his direction," Murtaugh said, citing national trends.
Campaign officials pointed to ads being run in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by vulnerable incumbent Democrats who have sought to distance themselves from Harris.
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Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is running an ad in the Keystone State highlighting how he "bucked Biden" and "sided with" Trump while painting the Democrat senator as an "independent." The ad features a Republican woman and her Democrat husband and does not once mention Harris.
Similar ads featuring Trump are running in Wisconsin for Sen. Tammy Baldwin and in Michigan for Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
"Democrat Senate candidates are spending Democrat donor money promoting Donald Trump in the Blue Wall battleground states," an official said.
And the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll also showed Trump leading by a margin with a key group: Latino voters. Trump is leading Harris by 11 percentage points in that critical voting bloc.
"But the polls are only theoretical election results and polls don’t win races. Actual votes win elections, and that’s why we’re continuing to accelerate," Murtaugh added. "And we’ll run through the tape on Election Day."
The Trump campaign said it is confident they have the "momentum."
"President Trump will be relentless and tireless," an official told Fox News Digital. "He’ll be barnstorming the country — rinse and repeat — over and over and over again until Election Day."
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Trump held events in battleground Georgia on Tuesday, holding a massive rally with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, country music singer Jason Aldean and former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines.
Trump this week made a campaign stop at a McDonald’s location in Pennsylvania to mock Harris for claiming that she once worked at the fast-food chain.
"The McDonald’s trip was an encapsulation of his positive message," an official said. "He is a cheerful, optimistic guy who knows he can fix it. And what was the Harris campaign’s reaction? They mocked it."
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The Harris campaign blasted that campaign stop as a "staged photo-op," saying Trump "doesn't understand what it's like to work for a living" and that the vice president "has a record of standing up for workers and taking on bad actors who rip people off, and she’ll do the same as President."
The next scheduled stops for Trump include major campaign rallies in Tempe, Arizona; Las Vegas; Traverse City, Michigan; Novi, Michigan; State College, Pennsylvania; and then a massive rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Campaign officials said the former president will continue to engage with the press and sit for major media interviews. On Friday, Trump will be interviewed for the Joe Rogan podcast. Rogan has 17 million subscribers on YouTube and 14 million on Spotify.
And his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will also continue engaging with the media and has already held major campaign events this week in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. In the coming days, Vance will be in Waterford, Michigan, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
But Trump campaign surrogates are also hosting major events, including Donald Trump Jr. campaigning in battleground states; a Trump campaign bus tour; and Women for Trump visiting areas damaged by recent hurricanes.
Even Dr. Phil and RFK Jr. are joining forces to host a "Make America Healthy Again" event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
And Trump campaign officials expressed the importance of early voting and are encouraging their supporters to "vote by any way they possibly can."
"Whether they vote by mail, vote early in person, vote on Election Day, we want them to make a plan to vote," an official said. "We need people to show up. And we are getting to the point where persuasion is almost over, and now we are getting to turnout."
Meanwhile, Harris' campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Harris, though, is expected to deliver what's being described as a major "closing argument" address next Tuesday - one week until Election Day - on the Ellipse, which is just south of the White House and north of the National Mall. The Harris campaign spotlighted that then-President Trump headlined a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse on Jan 6, 2021.
Her campaign this week also announced a new concert series featuring Bruce Springsteen and former President Obama, while the Democratic National Committee launched a new Taylor Swift-themed, get-out-the-vote campaign for young voters.
As for President Biden, he’s largely stayed off the campaign trail as Harris alternates between promising to continue the policies and vision of the Biden-Harris administration while also promising to bring "a new way forward."
But on Tuesday, Biden weighed in.
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"We got to lock him up," Biden said of Trump. However, the president quickly added, "Politically lock him up, lock him out. That’s what we have to do."
A Trump campaign official reacted, telling Fox News Digital that "for four years, it has been clear to the American people that the Biden-Harris administration has been using the weight of the federal government to go after Donald Trump and his supporters."
The official added, "Two weeks before the election, Joe Biden finally confirmed it."