What a Losing Campaign Looks Like

Susan Estrich on Oct 17, 2026

If you want a one-word answer to how the president is approaching this election, I'll give you my favorite. Kentucky. That's it. He has exactly one public event scheduled on Saturday -- a rally in Kentucky. Kentucky, a state that President Donald Trump carried by 30 points two years ago. Kentucky, a state he handily carried in 2016 and 2020. Your basic "reliably Republican" state that has the advantage of being a short hop to Mar-a-Lago, so you can dine for dollars. Nothing scheduled for Sunday except the trip back to D.C. Wouldn't you love to be along for that ride?

This is what a losing campaign looks like. It's two weeks out and you're campaigning in places you shouldn't have to be, states that wear your colors. You're rallying the base when that should be already done so you can talk to independents. If you're lucky, you've saved enough money to make things look better than they are; if you're Trump, you can dine with a few friends (hello, Elon) and fund the campaign, which is just not going to be enough this time.

What you can count on in a losing campaign by this point is that the blame game is in full swing, almost as active as the resume exchange. Half the House staffers will be competing for jobs working for whoever survives the bloodbath. Trump is not going to be happy with how the media covers this election. And some of the people around him will have to answer for that.

Of course, as we will also be reminded, Trump is not on the ballot; he is still president of an expanded Executive Branch. And hungry as many of my Democratic friends are for investigative vengeance, what most voters want -- and will expect Democrats to deliver -- is not Trump's scalp but lower prices and a less dangerous world. So there is at least some prospect that this polarized process might ultimately produce some constructive action. But not for a while. And certainly not until it's well over and until some blood has been spilled, internally and externally.

Until then, these things (losing) tend to get ugly. The lead story in The Washington Post today is about the leaky White House internal wars -- "a picture of infighting that has started to resemble the pitched battles of Trump's first term." Pitched battles over who will replace Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who at one point was untouchable, are now clearly the target of a barrage of leaks, no doubt among them supporters of her would-be successors. And it goes from there.

The vetting process was obviously not very fulsome when it came to picking a press secretary: where and when did you pass the bar, being a rather obvious question asked of lawyers and not even one she had to lie about. That's the problem with battlefield decisions made in the context of internal wars. Who will be loyal to the king, the ultimate test, even as those with an eye on the future also know how to count. Are we in the waning days of the Trump era? The infighting only fuels those stories. The leaks must be driving him crazy. And leaving the press with nothing to write about except Kentucky adds fuel to the flames.

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