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Democrats attacked John McCain as not optimistic enough for the moment in 2008, and they cast Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch rich guy four years later.
This cycle, they’re going a step further: They want former President Donald Trump to go away completely.
“I cannot wait until we don’t have to turn on our damn TV and see Donald Trump on there even again. Ever,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, said at a campaign stop Tuesday in Pittsburgh. “Please, America, show some sanity and elect Kamala Harris.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is underlining that message by rallying Wednesday with 100 Republicans who are willing to stomach a Democratic White House so long as it gets the GOP out from under Mr. Trump’s shadow.
Harris campaign officials said the rally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is designed to “turn the page on the chaos and instability of Trump.”
Ms. Harris’ novel outreach will extend to a sit-down interview with Bret Baier of Fox News — her first appearance on the conservative media channel.
It’s a strategy that speaks to Mr. Trump’s decade-long dominance over the political landscape.
Mr. Trump is virtually a constant fixture in the 24-hour news cycle. His steady cadence of rallies and confrontational interviews rules the airwaves and, when he was kicked off major social media platforms, he started one of his own.
Mr. Trump’s ardent MAGA following is his primary strength. Still, Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz are banking on Trump fatigue to drive voters to the polls.
“Anyone’s shtick gets old. At some point, the performer has just played the same routine so many times that there might be some weariness,” said Michael O’Connell, a GOP strategist in western Pennsylvania. “The country changes, and what resonated in 2016 might not resonate the same way in 2024.”
Democrats might have themselves to blame for Mr. Trump’s ubiquity.
The GOP standard-bearer seemed to hit his political nadir after his election loss and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
Attempts by Democratic lawmakers and prosecutors to hold him accountable for the postelection chaos, through a congressional Jan. 6 commission and a series of criminal indictments, thrust Mr. Trump back into the spotlight and hardened his supporters’ resolve.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who lost the presidential primary to Mr. Trump, said the indictments “just crowded out, I think, so much other stuff, and it’s sucked out a lot of oxygen.”
A quartet of criminal indictments failed to knock Mr. Trump out of the race.
The Trump campaign rejected the idea that voters are tired of the ex-president. It says the former president’s appeal has only broadened in recent years, pointing to support from business titan Elon Musk, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate and scion of a legendary Democratic family.
“The only thing voters are looking to move on from is Kamala Harris and the last 3½ years of failure, chaos, and economic catastrophe under her watch. Ever since he came down the escalator in 2015, President Trump has built a historic, unified, and ever-expanding coalition to Make America Great Again,” said Trump campaign deputy communications director Carolina Sunshine.
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