ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump sought to relaunch his presidential comeback bid Wednesday, this time in North Carolina with a rally and speech his campaign billed as a landmark economic address.
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Trump speaks at Harrah’s Cherokee Center, an auditorium in downtown Asheville, with a dozen American flags on his stage and custom backdrops that read: “No tax for Social Security” and “No tax on tips.”
See: How Trump’s Federal Reserve Control Wish Could Affect the Economy If He’s Reelected
Republicans expect Trump to focus more on Vice President Kamala Harris than her scattershot arguments and attacks since he elevated her to the presidential nomination. Twice in the past week, Trump rattled off such opportunities, in an hour-long news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and then in a 2 1/2-hour conversation on the social media platform X with CEO Elon Musk.
The latest effort comes in a state that gave Trump his closest statewide victory four years ago and is expected to be a battleground again in 2024. The question in the campaign is whether Trump will be able to stick to tighter legislation on the economy. Especially to saddle him with falling inflation, as opposed to Harris’s usual gripes and complaints.
The speech came the same day the Labor Department said year-over-year inflation hit its lowest level in more than three years in July, a boon for Harris. Harris plans to unveil more details of his promise to “build the middle class … as a defining goal of my presidency” in North Carolina on Friday.
See: Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago
A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans are more likely to trust Trump than Harris when it comes to dealing with the economy, but the margin is narrow — 45 percent for Trump and 38 percent for Harris.
Some voters who showed up to hear Trump said they were willing to hear him talk about the economy, not because they didn’t already trust him, but because they wanted him to broaden his appeal against Harris.
“He had to tell people what he was going to do, talk about the issues,” said Timothy Vath, 55, who drove from Greenville, South Carolina. “He said what he was going to do in his early days. “Talk about how he was going to do it again.”
Mona Shob, 60, of nearby Candler, said that despite his personal wealth, Trump “understands working people and wants what’s best for us.” Shope, who recently retired from a public community college, said she has a state pension but has started working part-time to offset inflation. “So I can still be on vacation and spend money after paying my bills,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing to save.”
Read More: Trump describes assassination attempt and deportations with Musk during chat on X
The venue in Asheville is significantly smaller than a typical Trump rally, with fewer than 3,000 seats. But the auditorium configuration appeared to be designed as much as possible to help Trump treat the event as a major policy speech rather than his usual rally, as opposed to the former president’s familiar arena or open-air venues.
Trump has been attacking Harris and Biden before him on the economy. But he has done so mostly with hyperbole, such as “the Kamala crash … 1929 should go with other generalizations like World War III” and America’s suburbs being “overrun by violent foreign gangs.” Trump made almost verbatim claims about Biden’s potential election in 2020.
Trump has said in recent weeks that “you wouldn’t have had inflation” if he had been re-elected, ignoring global supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes the massive aid package Trump signed as president. and the global energy price consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The former president has also promised to immediately set higher prices over a period of time. His major policy proposals on that front include an increase in drilling for oil (US production has reached its highest level under Biden), new tariffs on foreign imports, an extension of his 2017 tax cuts that expire under the next administration, an end to taxes on tip income and a Biden-term push on green energy and infrastructure. Withdrawal of Investments.
Read More: Americans view Harris as more honest and decent, slightly favor Trump on the economy and immigration, AP-NORC poll finds
But at Mar-a-Lago, in his conversation with Musk, on his own Truth social site and in his recent rallies and other interviews, Trump has obscured his own economic agenda. He is determined to attack Harris personally, falsely accusing him of misrepresenting his own race and ethnicity. He slipped back into old attacks on Biden and repeated the lie that his 2020 defeat was due to systematic voter fraud. More recently, he began lashing out about the size and enthusiasm of the crowds Harris draws on the campaign trail, even falsely claiming that his rally photo was faked with AI.
Those factors have made it difficult for Trump to offer a clear policy distinction with the Democratic ticket, no matter how much his aides tout the idea of such a redistricting.
A Harris aide said Wednesday that the vice president welcomes any comparison Trump might make.
“No matter what he says, one thing is certain: Trump has no plan, no vision, and no meaningful interest in helping build the middle class,” communications director Michael Tyler wrote in a campaign memo. Tyler pointed out that the pandemic recession and the 2017 tax cuts were skewed toward corporations and wealthy families, and that Trump’s proposals on trade, taxation and reversing Biden-era policies “will skyrocket inflation and cost millions of jobs in our economy — all benefiting the super-rich and special interests.
Read More: Harris is cautious on policy, aiming to outpace Trump and address 2020 vulnerabilities
Trump’s campaign listed the effects of inflation on North Carolina since Biden took office in 2021. The campaign did the same ahead of Trump’s Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta. Trump read the statistics from a teleprompter — but did so only at the end of 91 minutes on stage and after a few thousand people had left the once-capacity crowd.
North Carolina, meanwhile, is another battleground state where Trump will have to contend with a newly emboldened Harris campaign that is swinging toward Republicans toward Biden as the Democratic nominee.
Asheville and the surrounding areas are key to the outcome. Set against the Blue Ridge Mountains, the city has a liberal cultural identity with a bohemian feel and a live music and craft beer scene that attracts left-leaning students, retirees and tourists. But surrounding western North Carolina mountain counties have grown increasingly Republican in recent election cycles.
