In the final stretch, Harris and Trump are taking two different strategies

What we can learn from the upcoming travel schedules of the Democratic and Republican nominees

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy relies heavily on flipping Georgia and winning in the west while Kamala Harris is focused on fortifying the blue wall. ( (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images))

This weekend, former president Donald Trump made news on two occasions. First, when he went on a tangent talking about the late Arnold Palmer’s penis in the golf legend’s birthplace of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Second, when he tried his hand at making and serving french fries at a McDonald’s. (The McDonald’s trip was meant to be a dig at Vice President Kamala Harris, as he likes to publicly cast aspersions about whether Harris actually worked at McDonald’s at a summer job.)

The slapstick of these photo ops and tangents aside, Trump spending the weekend in Pennsylvania somewhat makes sense, given its swing state nature. A new Washington Post/Schar School poll showed Harris slightly leads Trump in the state. But in 2016, Trump shocked much of the world when he won the presidency largely by flipping formerly “Blue Wall” states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

A look at where Trump will be campaigning this week indicates that he truly sees his path to victory through other states, however — namely North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada.

On Monday, Trump is in Asheville, North Carolina. He has frequently tried to slam President Joe Biden, and by virtue Harris, for the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene, and has regularly campaigned in Asheville, despite the fact it is a liberal college town. The surrounding counties in western North Carolina contain many of his supporters, so that’s not entirely surprising.

On Tuesday, after doing a Latino roundtable in Doral, Florida, Trump will speak in Greensboro, which similarly is located in the blue island of Guilford County, surrounded by a sea of bright red counties.

Both Harris and Trump know that just like in college basketball, the path to victory runs through North Carolina. If Trump wins North Carolina, he will only need to win Georgia and either pick up Wisconsin and Michigan or win Pennsylvania to win. If Harris wins North Carolina, Trump would need to sweep Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and pick up either Pennsylvania or win Wisconsin and Michigan.

On Wednesday, Trump will head to Zebulon, Georgia for a “Ballots and Believers” event. Located in Pike County, about an hour south of Atlanta, Zebulon itself has only about 1,200 residents. But Trump needs to run up the scoreboard in rural counties like Pike and suburban and exurban areas like Forsyth County to overcome the Democratic firewall that is the greater Atlanta region.

On Thursday, Trump will then venture to Las Vegas to participate in the United for Change rally hosted by Turning Point Action, a young conservative group led by Charlie Kirk. Nevada is to Republicans what North Carolina has long been for Democrats: a state that they always try their hand at, but just can’t get right. It last voted for a Republican during George W Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. But Republicans are banking on Latinos’ rightward shift and the state having the highest uenemployment rate in the country to flip it.

Conversely, this past weekend, Democrats dispatched Barack Obama to Nevada. Obama won the state by 12.5 percentage points in 2008, and won again in 2012 by about half of that. The Harris campaign dispatching Obama to the Silver State shows they want to shore up support where they think they might be weakest.

But Harris is also trying to pick off at the margins to fortify her firewall in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She is doing so by attending events alongside former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Harris and Cheney will first hit Chester County, one of the “collar counties” that surrounds Philadelphia, where Hillary Clinton won with 52.6 percent of the vote in 2016 and Biden won with 58 percent of the vote. Afterward, they will head to Waukesha County, Wisconsin, one of the “WOW counties” alongside Ozaukee and Washington County. These heavily suburban counties have historically been bastions for white, suburban conservatives. Waukesha barely budged from the right in 2020. But as suburbs become friendlier to Democrats, the Harris campaign believes it can pick off some white suburbanites and campaigning with Cheney gives them permission structure.

Afterward, they will head to Oakland County, part of the larger Detroit metropolitan area, where a little more than half of voters broke for Clinton. Biden built on that margin in 2020 when he won back Michigan for Democrats. Nikki Haley also won about a third of the vote in this county in the Republican primary, which makes the Harris campaign think there might be some voters prime for picking.

But Harris is also bringing out the big guns to make sure that she leaves nothing to chance. On Thursday, she will rally with Obama in Atlanta after an event with R&B singer Usher — and on Saturday, she will hold a “get out the vote” event with former first lady Michelle Obama in Michigan.

By campaigning in Georgia, Harris has shown she sees an opportunity to keep it in the blue column. But more than anything, she is focused on fortifying herself so that if any other states like Arizona, North Carolina or Georgia go south, she can rely on the blue wall.