In Waning Days Of 2020 Campaign, Trump Tries To Recapture 2016 Mojo

Enlarge this image

President Trump holds a rally in Londonderry, N.H., on Sunday.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Enlarge this image

David Bossie, left, President Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign manager, and Hope Hicks, center, a senior adviser, dance to «YMCA after a rally in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday night.

Franco Ordonez/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Franco Ordonez/NPR

Elections
2 Pence Aides Test Positive For The Coronavirus. Pence Will Continue To Campaign

But Trump wasn’t talking about that on his six-state sprint this weekend across critical states his campaign thinks he could still win to find a path to victory.

Instead, the president was dialed up for high-voltage enthusiasm and optimism that his campaign hopes will motivate supporters to get out to the polls and keep Trump in the White House for another four years.

Trump plans a breakneck pace of rallies in the remaining week of the race — rallies capped off by «YMCA, where Trump himself dusts off some of his own awkward dance moves, boxing with his fists in front of his chest.

YouTube

«I think we’re winning, Trump insisted to reporters as he chatted them up on a Friday night flight to Palm Beach, Fla. «We’re winning by a lot.

The rallies, the crowd and the theatrics are straight out of his 2016 playbook. But after nearly four years in office, he’s no longer the outsider, and is being judged on his handling of a pandemic that has killed 225,000 Americans and continues to disrupt daily life.

In Waukesha, Wis., thousands of supporters came out to his Saturday night rally, despite surging coronavirus cases in the state. Trump told them he feels better now, after being hospitalized for COVID-19, than he did before.

«I wake up the next morning and I feel like Superman, he said. «I ripped my shirt off. We gotta go!

On Sunday, at a rally in Londonderry, N.H., after Trump told the crowd about his bout with the virus, supporters chanted, «Super Trump! Super Trump!

His rallies have been moved outdoors, where his screaming supporters pack themselves tightly together, most of them not wearing masks. In the Florida retirement community The Villages, there were dueling Uncle Sams, dancing for the president’s attention, and in North Carolina, there was a group of women who have followed Trump to all his rallies across the Tar Heel State.

Enlarge this image

Nuns in the front row of Trump’s Saturday rally in Circleville, Ohio.

Evan Vucci/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Evan Vucci/AP

Enlarge this image

Trump dances after his campaign rally at Pickaway Agriculture and Event Center in Circleville, Ohio, on Saturday.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Trump dances after his campaign rally at Pickaway Agriculture and Event Center in Circleville, Ohio, on Saturday.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images