How the Trump campaign is adjusting in the time of coronavirus – CNN

Amid this unprecedented public health and economic crisis, the campaign can no longer ask voters whether they are better off now than they were four years ago. Instead, it is shifting to pegging the President's success to his handling of the pandemic.

The crisis has impacted every facet of the Trump's campaign's strategy as aides and advisers now work to navigate virtual organizing and fundraising -- all while working from home, like many Americans, as its glossy Virginia headquarters and field offices across the country are now shuttered.

The outbreak has also played a role in how the campaign operates for the time being. Instead of being focused on growing its ground game in states that will be critical to Trump's election win in November, as officials had planned on doing at this time, they are now mainly focused on the digital effort. The Trump campaign's digital team currently employs over 100 people.

Messaging

Behind that strategic shift in messaging is the understanding that Americans are closely following the administration's response and the campaign's key job now is to ensure voters perceive Trump's response is effective.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claimed the campaign is now fundamentally about how Americans believe Trump handled the crisis.

"Whatever their campaign promises were or weren't, when you hit a major crisis -- with me it was Hurricane Sandy, with the President it's this pandemic now -- in my view, politically, nothing else matters," Christie, a key Trump ally, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "And, in fact, I've never seen a time when the opponent is more irrelevant. And that's not an insult to Vice President Biden."

"But in the end, the American people are going to decide: Has the President of the United States stood up to this crisis and done right by them and protected their lives and their property, or hasn't he?" Christie said. "It's almost as if now the selection as his position is going to be a referendum of President Trump rather than a binary choice between the Vice President (Biden) and the President."

As the administration ramped up Trump's response to the outbreak, so did his campaign with the polling. Polling that showed the country favored keeping stricter social distancing measures in place played a key role in Trump's decision to extend it 30 days this week, three people said.

"The campaign remains the same in focus, which is the President is leading on what we're talking about and we're echoing what he talks about -- that's always been the strategy and stance of the campaign. He's leading the country through a national crisis right now," Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine told CNN.

The campaign will talk about the work Trump is doing, as well as continue to push back against what it describes as "false narratives" from Democratic rivals and the media alike, Perrine said.

For now, the campaign has sought to highlight Trump's action through its social media channels. And top surrogates have touted a historic stimulus deal passed by Congress as a sign of Trump's leadership.

The campaign recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to television stations running the ad in key swing states of Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, because it "contains the false assertion that President Trump called the coronavirus a 'hoax,' when in fact he was referring to Democrat criticisms and politicization of the federal response to the public health crisis."

In response, Priorities USA continued to air the ad and expanded it to Arizona. It also launched the ad digitally in Spanish.

The campaign's rapid response team has also gone after Joe Biden, including last week, accusing the former vice president of using the crisis "as an opportunity to cram the Green New Deal down Americans' throats," per a statement from communications director Tim Murtaugh, after comments Biden made about the next round of stimulus funding. And on Thursday, Murtaugh issued a statement reacting to Biden's statement slamming the administration on record unemployment claims, saying Biden is "ineffectively sniping from the sidelines."

Briefing is the new rally

The most visible change to the campaign's strategy is the indefinite pause on rallies -- a critical tool for capturing voter data -- as the administration encourages social distancing practices.

Last Thursday marked one month since Trump was in his comfort zone, surrounded by thousands of chanting supporters in the enclave of the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For now, the campaign will continue to follow White House and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on crowd sizes. The campaign had previously been scheduling rallies to closely mirror and counter-program the Democratic primary: Des Moines the day before the Iowa caucuses, Manchester before the first in the nation New Hampshire primary, Las Vegas, Charleston, and Charlotte before their respective contests.

In lieu of rallies, the President has taken his wide-ranging, often lengthy speeches to the briefing room. Since the vice president was tapped to lead the task force February 26, Trump has led 21 press briefings. Much like his "Keep America Great" campaign rallies, the average length is 76 minutes, with the longest clocking in at 110 minutes.

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How the Trump campaign is adjusting in the time of coronavirus - CNN