President Trump’s reelection campaign soon will hit a milestone for swag: the sale of the 1 millionth iconic MAGA hat.
While peddling $25 ball caps on the internet alone doesn’t win an election, the merchandising benchmark is one indication of Mr. Trump’s huge head start over a Democratic field of two dozen major candidates competing against one another for money and volunteers.
From its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Mr. Trump’s reelection team is kicking into high gear, collecting data on millions of voters, dispatching foot soldiers to battleground states and staffing the Beltway nerve center with sweeping views of the “swamp” Mr. Trump vowed to drain.
The president’s campaign says its digital operation and deep pockets give it a powerful advantage over his eventual rival, whether the Democratic nominee is former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, an ambitious senator or a well-spoken mayor from Indiana.
“That person is going to get beat up from the primary. They will be broke because it will take every penny they’ve got to get there. They won’t have a national operation to flip a switch on and get moving,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s director of communications.
His office on the 14th floor of a high-rise features a small army of young staffers, plus experienced public relations folks poached from the White House, Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
The communications “war room” is a bit empty right now, though the campaign plans to fill in rows of work stations beneath flat-screen TVs blaring the latest from Fox News or CNN.
Unpacked boxes lined an in-house studio last week, though top aides will soon enough conduct TV hits without having to leave the building.
The campaign’s broad goal is clear: Lock down states that Mr. Trump won in 2016 — think Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — while looking to expand the map into places such as New Mexico, Colorado and Minnesota.
It helps that Mr. Trump hasn’t stopped campaigning. His trademark rallies and big crowds are tailor-made for the TV cameras, though they also serve a practical purpose: They are great for enlisting campaign volunteers and for mining contact data from ticketholders.
“We can isolate a group of swing voters and target each one, knock on every door, call every phone line and know that universe of ’persuadables,’” said national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “We think — to great effect — that we will make contact with 26 million.”
Mr. Trump will formally kick off his reelection campaign June 18 in the battleground state of Florida.
He will rally with supporters in the 20,000-seat Amway Center in Orlando, in the heart of a must-win state for him, flanked by first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen.
Yet Mr. Trump has been building his campaign treasury for some time.
His campaign and the Republican National Committee ended the first quarter of fundraising with a total of $82 million in the bank. Among Democratic hopefuls, Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont led with $28 million in the bank, and the Democratic National Committee had only $9.3 million in cash on hand, with $6.6 million in debts.
Mr. Trump swept to victory in 2016 running as an insurgent with an unprecedented resume for a major-party nominee: a billionaire real estate mogul turned reality TV star with no political or military experience.
The campaign argues that he is still an outsider, though he will have a lengthy and controversial political record to defend in 2020.
Mr. Murtaugh said that won’t change the president’s approach.
“He came to Washington and said he was going to shake it up,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious that the D.C. establishment still doesn’t know what to make of him. He will still be the insurgent candidate; he will just have an incumbent’s reelection campaign behind him.”
Democrats, meanwhile, reject the Trump campaign’s optimism and its critiques of their operation.
“The DNC is building the infrastructure necessary for our eventual nominee to win. While Donald Trump will have to run on a record of broken promises, Democrats will be talking to voters about the issues they care about most, including access to affordable health care, creating good-paying jobs and lowering prescription drug costs,” DNC spokesman Daniel Wessel said.
The Trump campaign argues that it will be easy to defend the president’s record, saying it boils down to “promises made, promises kept” on matters such as immigration, boosting the economy and cheering on America’s manufacturing sector.
On the other side, the dominant figure is Mr. Biden, who not only leads in primary polling but also regularly tops Mr. Trump in head-to-head polling matchups.
Yet the Trump campaign says even if Mr. Biden runs away from the primary field, he can’t run away from shifting stances over his 40-plus years in politics and the leftward lurch of his party.
They cited a clip of Mr. Biden telling an activist he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment, which bans taxpayer funding for abortion.
That could be true for whoever emerges from the crowded Democratic primary field.
Mr. Murtaugh said the person winning the Democratic nomination will have had to tilt left on health care, embracing more government intervention, giving Mr. Trump a chance to stand for people who like their current plans and don’t want to see them swallowed up.
“These Democrats are forced to say, ’Yes, my plan will cover illegal immigrants,’” Mr. Murtaugh said. “So take Medicare Advantage away from seniors who are American citizens, but at the same time, you’re also going to cover illegal immigrants. I’d love to put that on a bumper sticker.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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