US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign team on Thursday shrugged off the president’s expected impeachment less than a year before the election, talking up the campaign’s data collection efforts and declaring that no one in the Democratic field can compete with the incumbent.
With a US House of Representatives impeachment vote expected next week, the campaign team said that polls indicate impeachment is unpopular with independents, particularly in battleground states.
The campaign team said that Trump could now have a glide path to re-election, though he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots in 2016 and captured Electoral College votes by razor-thin margins in three Rust Belt states.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, was one of several senior campaign officials who briefed reporters on the state of the campaign.
“We’re on offense everywhere and we’re very excited about that,” he said.
Kushner was a Democrat before helping steer his father-in-law’s surprise victory three years ago.
“I was not a Republican. Now I’m a Republican. I think the Republican Party is growing now that people like me feel comfortable being part of it,” he said.
The strategy laid out is multi-pronged, including a focus on turning out supporters of the president who stayed home during last year’s midterm elections; a robust data operation fueled by collecting information at the president’s raucous rallies; a volunteer-heavy and technology-driven organization far more professional than the low-budget 2016 version; and a commitment to expanding possible paths to victory by competing in 17 battleground states — including Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Mexico — where Trump lost last time.
A key to re-election is turning out the 8.8 million voters the campaign has identified as backing the president in 2016 and who still support him, but did not vote during the midterm elections because Trump’s name was not on the ballot.
Trump stands poised to become only the third US president to be impeached and he would be the first impeached president to run for re-election.
“This lit up our base, lit up the people that are supporters of the president. They’re frustrated, they’re upset, and that motivates voters,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said. “They have ignited a flame underneath them.”
Although he declared that Trump did not deserve to be impeached, Parscale said that the proceedings have helped the campaign’s volunteer recruitment and fundraising.
“That has put money in our bank. It has added volunteers to our field program,” Parscale said.
That stood in stark contrast to the somber tone struck by Democrats, including those running for president, who believe that Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine to investigate a political foe are grounds for impeachment.
Democratic lawmakers say they are proceeding with efforts to impeach Trump out of constitutional duty, not political gain.
Trump has claimed the opposite, denouncing impeachment as a purely partisan political play.
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