Donald Trump and Mike Pence deny turmoil on the ticket as they campaign side by side in Midwest
Wisconsin rally hit by controversy as top state Republican calls out Trump for saying 'stupid things'
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and running mate Mike Pence are barnstorming through the American Midwest hoping to quell speculation that their partnership is unravelling because of deep differences.
However, a rally set for Friday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was generating unwelcome distractions of a different kind because of Mr Trump’s refusal earlier in the week to endorse the re-election in the state of House speaker Paul Ryan who faces a primary vote on Tuesday. There was word later on Friday, that Mr Trump would make a last-minute endorsement of the speaker.
In campaigning side by side, the pair were seeking to reset their campaign after a tumultuous few days set off by Mr Trump’s earlier dithering over Mr Ryan and his public bickering with the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier slain in Iraq, who had criticized him at the Democratic convention.
But the many diverging statements from the nominee and his running mate, notably regarding the flap started by Mr Trump’s belittling of the soldier’s parents, have created an impression that they are running almost parallel campaigns sometimes at odds with each other.
“Donald Trump and I are standing shoulder to shoulder to say to the American people, 'We can be strong again,”' Mr Pence, who is the Governor of Indiana, insisted to NBC News on Friday. He refuted the suggestion that their campaign was faltering because of Mr Trump’s missteps.
That, however, is the story of two important new polls. The first, by McClatchy-Marist puts Mr Trump a full 15 points behind Hillary Clinton nationally, 33 per cent to 48 per cent. A Wall Street Journal/NBC survey puts him 9 points behind. Meanwhile a CNN round-up of swing-state polls suggests the Trump-Pence campaign is trailing badly in Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan.
"If you don’t like me, that’s OK, vote for Pence, thats the same thing, a great guy," Mr Trump told supporters at the first event in Des Moines Iowa, after recalling the slog that all presidential candidates face at the start of the nominating races with caucuses in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire.
The occasions when Mr Pence seems to be trying to wipe up after Mr Trump continue to multiply. Most notably, he went into damage control over the spat with the soldier’s family saying in a statement: “Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American”.
He similarly sought to extinguish the furore that came with Mr Trump’s suggestion last month that he might not send America to the aid of Nato states if they were invaded by Russia. “America will stand by our allies,” Governor Pence said in a statement a few days later. “We'll uphold our treaty obligations, including the mutual defence alliance that is Nato. ... America keeps its word, and you can tell Donald Trump keeps his word.”
While there is little disguising that they are a political odd-couple, it could still be that it turns out to be a relationship that works with Mr Pence playing both clean-up guy and also filling in the holes that many conservatives see in Mr Trump’s record. The Governor has strongly conservative stances on issues like abortion and gay rights. He is also Mr Calm to Mr Bluster.
It was Mr Trump’s peevish-sounding refusal to endorse the re-election of Mr Ryan, however, that guaranteed a certain sourness at their planned Friday evening rally in Wisconsin, however. No top Republican officials from the state were scheduled to join them on stage; certainly not Mr Ryan. Also expected to be absent was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
More remarkable was a column written in a local newspaper by the Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, in which he said he was “embarrassed” by Mr Trump being his party’s presidential nominee and calling him out for saying “stupid things”.
“It's a sad day in America when the Republican nominee for president doesn't support the Republican speaker of the House,” he wrote. “Paul Ryan is the intellectual leader of our party and a strong voice for conservatives…If Donald Trump wants to have a chance to win in November, he should start following Paul Ryan's lead.”
“We are Ryan Republicans here in Wisconsin, not Trump Republicans,” he added pointedly.
Inadvertently or otherwise, Mr Ryan seemed to indicate meanwhile that he already believes that Mr Trump will lose by a landslide in November by sending out a fund-raising email on Thursday, reminding Republicans: “If we fail to protect our majority in Congress, we could be handing President Hillary Clinton a blank cheque.”
When it had become clear to everyone that Bob Dole was going to be easily overwhelmed by Bill Clinton in 1996, Republican leaders used the same "blank cheque" language to urge voters to protect the party’s numbers in Congress.
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