Donald Trump Can’t Help But Bring Up One Of His Biggest Weaknesses

RIPON, Wis. ― Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance with former Rep. Liz Cheney at Ripon College was focused heavily on the threat former President Donald Trump poses to democracy, one of the Republicans’ biggest weaknesses in the 2024 presidential election.

But even if the Democrats’ presidential campaign had focused on something else entirely, Trump would have inserted it into the news cycle himself.

Just hours earlier, on the other side of Lake Michigan, Trump reprised his favorite lie about the 2020 election being stolen, essentially performing the political equivalent of Harris advertising how many undocumented immigrants had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since January 2021.

“We did great in 2016 and a lot of people don’t know that we did much better in 2020. We won. We won. We did win. It was a rigged election,” Trump told the crowd at Saginaw State University. “That is why I am doing it again. If I thought I lost I would not be doing this again.”

Trump’s inability to accept his defeat, the binds it has placed on fellow Republicans and most crucially, the federal indictments it led to, have combined to create a world where Harris hardly needs to mention one of her opponents’ biggest weaknesses on paid media, allowing her campaign to focus on limiting Trump’s edge on issues important to voters like immigration and the economy.

Polls show Harris with a small and stable lead over Trump in the popular vote, with all seven major swing states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, up for grabs between the two candidates with less than 40 days before election day. Every time Trump denies the results of the election, he reminds voters of one of his least popular positions. Two-thirds of Americans believe Biden