Donald Trump’s political director breaks down the final sprint to election day

Shelby Talcott: Polls show that we’re essentially in a tied race. How is the Trump campaign feeling about the state of the race?

James Blair: The word of the day is cautiously optimistic. We like all of the signs that we’re seeing, whether you look at where voter registration ended, whether you look at where the polling is on a national basis or a state-by-state basis, or whether you look at the early voting numbers in any of the battleground states: Everything from our perch right now points in a good direction for us. Obviously, we’re not declaring victory. We’ve got plenty of work to do over the next week, but we feel very good about where we are and the trajectory right now.

Why are you so confident when all of the polling is still within the margin of error?

Obviously there is the public polling, and then there’s private polling, and we have our own view of the race and many other data points that are out there, like early voting trends, what we’re observing on the ground, [and] who is in the early voting pool for each respective party. Look, we’re turning out more low and mid-propensity voters than them. We obviously have more newly registered voters than them. We’re getting a lot of those folks out. We are pacing well ahead of where we were in 2022 or 2020 in the early voting returns. So, those are great signs.

And obviously, we have a sense of who’s left to vote, and we feel like that inures to our benefit. We also can look at the trends over time and what we’ve seen as consistent strength for President Trump in all of the battleground states for quite some time now.

We watch the public polling to sort of measure the conversation, right? But we monitor it differently internally. But even the public polling all points in a very strong direction for President Trump. He is well ahead of where he was on any of the averages…than he’s ever been at any point in his political career, and certainly one week out. So all of that points in a good direction for us.

So do the public polls match what you’re seeing in your internal polling? Because it sounds like your internal polling is perhaps a bit more positive than what we’ve seen publicly.

That’s probably an impossible question to answer specifically, because there’s such a wide range of public polls and quality, but what I would say is that we have seen a consistently strong position for President Trump. We’re continuing to fight. We believe that this race is still going to go on all the way until election day, but we are confident. And again, I say cautiously. We’re not cocky, but we’re confident in our trajectory and general positioning right now.

The Harris campaign is telling their supporters that they’re confident in their position, that the Blue Wall is looking close but strong, that they’re seeing their low propensity voters show up in the early vote. What’s your take on that narrative?

I think that they can’t do anything other than try to say they feel good when they’re one week out of the race, but the fact is we are turning out more low and mid propensity voters than they are. That’s a problem for them.

They really have no answer for why they’re pacing so far behind their position on the early vote in any of these states relative to ’22 or ’20. So essentially, what they’re saying is, don’t worry, we’re going to make it up on Election Day, which historically has not been their strength. Listen, anything’s possible. Everyone has until Election Day to turn out their voters, them included. But if you take the last several election cycles in any sort of recent history as a guide of anything, then they are not performing at a position where they would like to be.

Again, I’m not declaring anything, and they’re certainly not going to say “we’re losing.” But I put it to you this way, there are alarm bells sounding on that side, whether it’s in the early voting numbers, whether it’s their super PAC coming out and basically saying publicly your closing message is entirely wrong, I mean, there is clear evidence of conflict and concern on their side about the state of affairs and where things are going to close.

The Harris campaign also said they’re seeing growth with Puerto Rican voters in battleground states. Obviously, this Puerto Rico [comedian] story has been in the news for a few days now, and at least some Republicans seem genuinely worried about it. Have you seen anything in the early reaction or the early data that makes you worried about this situation?

I think that is a new cherry picked narrative for them. First of all, let’s establish what’s true: President Trump didn’t say anything. It’s a manufactured hoax based on a joke from a comedian that the campaign already said doesn’t represent our views. The fact that they’re manufacturing that hoax and narrative tells you exactly about where they think things are.

The persuadable voters in this election are deciding based on the economy first and foremost, and then the border, crime, America’s standing in the world, and none of that whole manufactured conversation over the last couple of days. And look, tasteless joke, we said that, but at the end of the day the voters are voting on these issues, and they’re not talking about the issues.

They’re [Harris campaign] not talking about how they’re going to fix the economic problems that they have created. They’re not talking about how they’re going to secure the border. They’re not talking about how they’re going to regain America’s standing in the world, or bring peace to the Middle East, or any of these things. So they’re very much on the defensive. It’s sort of a new shiny object. I mean, I’d ask you this: A week ago, would anyone have believed them if they said our path to victory runs through Puerto Ricans in the battleground states all of a sudden? This is what you do to buy time when you don’t feel good about where things are, you create new narratives. All the signs are flashing on their campaign that that’s what they’re doing. So no, we’ve not seen that.

Trump’s going to Allentown [Pennsylvania] today. Does he have to do anything to make this go away, or are you guys focused full steam ahead on getting the message you want out versus responding to this story?

I can’t speak for the president. It’s conceivable he’ll mention it today at some point. It’s certainly possible. But you know, largely, just to dispense with any fake narrative, look: the president didn’t say anything. I mean, pure and simple, that’s it. The end. Didn’t say anything.

Conversely, which is worth pointing out, the Harris campaign’s whole strategy is attacking half the country as Nazis. That’s their closing argument. And Tim Walz, who just said that two days ago, owes half of America an apology. You know what they sound like? They sound like “deplorables” Hillary Clinton, who never became president of the United States.

When we’re talking about the [Madison Square Garden] rally in general, my takeaway was that the campaign is really focused on turning out the base. Someone described it to me as a second RNC Convention. Is that the Trump campaign strategy at this point, to focus on the base?

Well, first of all, those things aren’t in conflict. You can persuade voters and get out your base. That’s a fake narrative that somehow you have to pick between the two. It’s ridiculous. And I’ll say even [Harris senior advisor] David Plouffe, I think said this recently, and it’s the one thing I agree with him on. He’s right, picking between your base and persuading voters is sort of a false thing that’s been created.

And the whole reason people say that is because, why? Because we’re talking about the economy and inflation and immigration, and they’re saying that’s talking to [the] base. Well, I’ve got news for you: Read any of the public polling. More than half the country thinks the border is a crisis. It’s only the most left wing part of the Democratic Party that disagrees with that sentiment. The majority of the country thinks the country is on the wrong track. The majority of the country is not optimistic about their financial situation. They don’t think it’s getting better. They think it’s gotten worse recently.

So when we’re talking about how we’re going to fix those issues, that’s not a base play, and yeah, it motivates the base too, but that’s a persuasion play. That’s what people are making up their minds on. And you can read any poll, it says that’s true. And what do you see in all of the public polling? President Trump is leading on who can fix the economy, he’s leading on who can fix the border, leading on who can bring peace to the world, leading on who can reduce violent crime, leading on all of those issues. And that’s driving his top line numbers. It’s born out in every poll, even the public polls.

When we’re talking about some of those undecided voters or swing voters or low propensity voters — which groups have you seen that are most moveable this last week?

We’ve been tracking a group of what we call persuadable voters, and obviously, I’m sure they [Harris campaign] have a slightly different view of persuadable voters than we do, and those aren’t entirely undecideds, but there’s a huge overlap between the undecided and persuadable voter pool.

Right now across the battleground states, or sort of towards the end of last week, we would say that the remaining undecided and persuadable [vote] hangs around 5-6% across the battleground states, just kind of in totality [and] putting aside any individual state.

It’s not one group, but there are demographic trends that sort of emerge from those groups. They are younger — and I don’t mean young, I mean younger than the age of 50. They skew more male, in terms of the group that we’re going after; again — not all male, they just skew more than the electorate as a whole. They’re less white than the electorate as a whole — they’re still majority white, but less white: More Hispanic, more Black. Almost a quarter of them are Black voters, which is a huge problem for her, by the way, the fact that that group that would traditionally be in her base is actually in the sort of undecided and/or persuadable camp 10 to 12 days out of the election when we’re talking about last weekend.

So you see some of these markers emerging — and with the undecided voters, they are less politically engaged. They are lower propensity by nature. Again, not all low propensity, but lower propensity than the electorate as a whole. They make less money than the sort of broader electorate — to the tune of $15,000 to $20,000. They’re more likely to have taken a second job to make ends meet in the last couple of years. So those are some of the sort of broad demographic markers that stand out.

What do you feel like they need to hear to be persuaded?

Policy solutions, and that’s reflected in everything we do in our message. I mean, we are creating a clear contrast on the policies that we are presenting versus what she’s presenting as it pertains to the issues that they care about that are driving their vote again: The economy, crime, the border, standing in the world, those are kind of the big four. And look, the big cluster, I will say, is economic issues. I mean this issue environment is less fragmented than you might often see of an election at a presidential level, because there’s such a high portion of the country that is feeling economic pressure and feeling serious economic pain and thinks that it’s gotten worse lately, not better. So what President Trump is doing is articulating very clearly: Kamala broke it in the last four years. She has repeatedly made clear that she’s no different than Biden. In fact, she will double down and make the problem worse with more extreme policies as evidenced by her track record, and he will fix it, and he’s laying out his policy agenda to fix it. So it’s just a very clear contrast of how President Trump is going to fix what they broke.

The LA Times and Washington Post chose not to endorse this week, which obviously caused a huge uproar. I’m curious what you make of that. Does it have any effect on the race? Does it help Trump?

I don’t particularly think who The New York Times or Washington Post endorses matters one way or another. But what I think it indicates is that there [is] perhaps a sliver of hope of recognition that perhaps weighing in the political races when you are supposedly an unbiased news source does not make a lot of sense and has a lot to do, as others have criticized, with why the distrust in the media has grown so much. So look, I don’t know that [it] matters, but I think what it really just indicates is President Trump’s momentum, whether you take the most nefarious view of why they’re not endorsing or the most positive view, it all inures to our benefit, and that’s not good for them.

If we fast forward eight days and Harris ends up winning, what do you think most likely would have happened? What is your biggest concern?

Well, I don’t like to see gamesmanship like I’m seeing right now in Pennsylvania, and you can go check my Twitter feed. I’ve been doing it all day. There’s essentially voter suppression and intimidation going on during early voting in Pennsylvania right now. When our people are flooding the polls, they’re not following the state law. They’re telling people to get out of line. They’re sending police officers out to shut down lines before five o’clock, even though the governor today said, if you’re in line by five, you get to vote today. [CBS News reported Bucks County officials cut off a line at 2:45 PM at a polling station in Doylestown in response to heavy demand.]

I don’t like to see those games. They’ve been going on for several days in Pennsylvania, and it’s certainly a concern, and I think you’ll see action on that very shortly. So it’s those sorts of things, where once again, the election system is not following the law that is in place to ensure a free and fair election — that keeps me up at night absolutely. And honestly, that’s the main thing. Everything else is about scoring points and getting voters to the polls, and that’s a great example of what I mean. Our voters are standing there. They want to vote, and you have people making it hard on them against the law for no reason.

Are you saying if Harris wins in eight days or 10 days, whatever [the date], it will be because of interference at the polls?

I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is, between now and then, we need a fair election where everybody follows the law, we count all of the votes fairly and legally, and the chips will fall where they may.

And my last question – what was the biggest adjustment that the campaign had to make after [President Joe] Biden dropped out?

I think the biggest one was just moving to defining a candidate that was less defined than President Biden. The opinion on Biden was pretty baked in, the country knows who he is and they had a pretty firm opinion of him. Kamala Harris was much more of a blank slate. We obviously moved to define her quickly as the ideological, far-left liberal that she is, and I think that’s been successful. So that was the biggest thing, running against a candidate that everyone knows about, to explaining who a candidate is to the voters.