Vice President Kamala Harris has put Donald Trump in a box, and the former president so far has been unable to escape, according to an analysis.
Trump has been pulling out one trick after another from his playbook that had previously knocked his opponents off balance and kept the spotlight on himself, but the Washington Post's Dan Balz said Harris has cruised past those snares and forced her GOP rival to play catchup.
"As Harris has glided through the past month, Trump has taken to social media or to friendly media interviews in hopes of setting the terms of the conversation, but that has backfired," wrote Balz, the newspaper's chief correspondent for national politics. "He has tried invective, exaggeration and lies, something that in the past he used to shift the focus, sometimes to distract from his own problems, at other times to draw attention away from a rival. It hasn’t done what he hoped."
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The past week belonged to Harris and her party, just as the GOP convention week belonged to Trump and the Republicans, but the former president's attempts at counterprogramming have flopped.
"Trump has learned, perhaps painfully, that at this moment, fewer are listening to him," Balz wrote. "In short, nothing seems to be working the way it once did."
Harris leaves Chicago with the wind at her back, but campaigns are unpredictable and a Sept. 10 debate looms on the schedule.
"Everyone now awaits the next round of national and battleground state polls to see whether Harris receives the traditional bounce that accompanies a successful convention and whether the enthusiasm that was on display this week inside the United Center and at massive rallies in the days before will settle a bit," Balz wrote.
"As many of the luminaries who spoke here this week reminded Democrats, this is a very tight race," Balz added, "close enough certainly that even a disoriented Trump could win — if he regains his legs as a candidate, which is one of the biggest questions at this moment."
