Trump and Pence attempt a campaign reset as public trust falters

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/politics/us-election-donald-trump-joe-biden-coronavirus/index.html

President Donald Trump attempted to right his faltering reelection campaign this week, looking to stem the steady decline of his poll numbers and shore up eroding support within his key voting bloc -- non-college-educated White voters -- by redefining his fight against Joe Biden and shaking up his campaign team after a series of stumbles.

Trump spent little time trying to lead America out of its coronavirus crisis this week, which was bookended by an erratic Rose Garden press conference Tuesday and a sharply worded campaign speech by Vice President Mike Pence in Wisconsin Friday afternoon. Clearly losing the battle on messaging, the President and his team sought to reframe the 2020 election as a choice between their agenda of "freedom and opportunity" and what Pence claimed is Biden's vision of an America under "growing control of the state" -- a future he said would lead to "socialism and decline."

Their aim -- in keeping with the President's relentless push to reopen the US economy regardless of the human cost -- is to get Americans to focus on anything other than the raging virus while distracting from the administration's flawed effort to control it earlier this year, a diversionary tactic that has not worked so far.