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Donald Trump has claimed that he is struggling to stop personally attacking Kamala Harris because he feels so much hostility towards her.
The former president has been advised repeatedly by his campaign team to focus on bread-and-butter issues such as the economy and immigration, rather than slurs against Ms. Harris, data shows turn off swing voters.
But Mr Trump, 78, has confided in two people he can’t help himself because of how much “animosity” he feels for Mr Harris, 59, and other rivals, according to the New York Times.
In recent weeks, he has come under fire for racially charged comments about Ms Harris’s dual heritage, claiming she has “turned black” in recent years, and has often mispronounced her first name.
He made similar personal attacks against his 2016 rivals, calling Hillary Clinton “crooked”, and his Republican primary opponents “low energy”, “lying” and “bird-brained”.
The Republican candidate has been urged to show more restraint by campaign strategists and allies, including GOP mega-donor Steve Wynn, because Trump is behind Ms. Harris in most swing states.
Mr. Wynn, a casino director who has known Trump for years, recently shared with him a private poll that showed independent voters wanted a candidate who sticks to substantive policy issues, the New York Times reported.
With the race in a virtual dead heat between Ms. Harris and Trump, independent voters in a handful of swing states are likely to decide the next occupant of the White House.
Trump hinted at his difficulty in following his campaign’s advice this week, when he lashed out at barbs made by Michelle and Barack Obama in their address to the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
The former president and first lady repeatedly mocked Trump, who succeeded them in the White House in 2017, in prime-time televised speeches that deviated greatly from their entrances previously to the Democrats to avoid denying opponents.
Mrs Obama accused Trump of “ugly, misogynistic, racist lies”, while her husband mocked Trump for having a “weird obsession with crowd sizes”, while making a highly suggestive hand gesture.
Trump hit back at the couple for “taking shots” at him during a rally, and insisted he was justified in his own behavior on the campaign trail.
He echoed his campaign advisers’ warning to him, adding: “Do I still have to stick to policy?”
His campaign has set a schedule of events over the past week to undercut the four-day Democratic convention in Chicago, including an immigration-focused trip to the US-Mexico border.
Park fever
However, insiders said that some of those efforts were being hampered by Trump’s outspoken comments during his rallies and posts on social media platforms.
The outpouring reached a fever pitch on Thursday, when Ms Harris gave her final address to the convention.
Trump responded to the 35-minute speech in real time on Truth Social, accusing Ms Harris of “lying” and being “all talk, no action”.
He later called into Fox News to complain but the right-wing cable network cut him off 10 minutes into his long stint.
The party convention marked the culmination of Ms Harris’s campaign, where a stream of party dignitaries and celebrities took the stage to cheer on the 59-year-old just over a month after Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race.
It won the ratings battle against the Republican convention itself in Milwaukee last month, bringing in an average of 21.8 million viewers over the four days, according to media data company Neilsen.
The figures increased the average television audience for the Republican national convention – 19.1 million – by 15 percent. It is not clear how many people watched either convention online.
The highest television viewers for both conventions were the acceptance speeches of their party nominees. Trump’s address, just days after his assassination attempt, drew 28.4 million viewers. Ms Harris narrowly beat that figure, attracting 28.9 million viewers.
Poll bounce
Ms Harris and her running mate Tim Walz hope to build on the momentum with a bus tour through the Georgia battleground in the coming days.
Tony Fabrizio, a Trump campaign pollster, said staff expected the vice president to get a “small” but “temporary” post-convention polling bounce of two to three points, noting it’s a common phenomenon.
However, he pointed out that Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis had a 17-point lead over George HW Bush in 1988 after that year’s DNC, and Hillary Clinton had a seven-point lead over Trump after their 2016 conventions. . “We all know how those ended up. These bumps don’t last,” said Mr Fabrizio.
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