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Donald Trump is finally recognizing he’s at risk of losing the election unless he makes some changes.
As Democrats convened this week in Chicago, the former president’s campaign advisers reached out to people who are allies of both Trump and Brian Kemp, the popular governor of Georgia he was publicly attacking just weeks ago, to smooth things over between the two Republicans.
Trump’s advisers, meanwhile, have been privately strategizing about how to broaden his appeal with voters and shore up support among top allies. They convened a stakeholders call last week with a small group of influential Trump supporters and unofficial advisers to provide an update on the election.
Privately, Trump has suggested he understands that he could lose in November if he does not dramatically change his approach to the race, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking who was granted anonymity to discuss the situation.
Trump’s prospects of reclaiming the White House are nowhere near as bright as they were just over a month ago, when he and Republicans were celebrating at their convention in Milwaukee. After surviving an assassination attempt days earlier — and as an unpopular Biden said he was remaining in the race — many in the GOP believed a Trump win was inevitable.
Weeks later, after a month of Harris’ glistening poll numbers and positive news coverage of her candidacy, Trump and his team are fretting. His allies have been blanketing the airwaves calling for him to stop his obsession over crowd sizes and personal attacks on Harris and focus instead on policy and the vice president’s record. The pleas appeared to have broken through, though only partially.
As Harris prepared to take the stage in Chicago on Thursday, Trump was praising Kemp on social media, the latest in a series of steps the former president has taken in recent days to try to course-correct as Harris has started to pull ahead in polls.
This week, Trump announced he would not enforce the Comstock Act to ban mail delivery of abortion pills, something he had previously declined to specify. On Friday, he wrote on his Truth Social website that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” using a term that is popular with abortion rights activists, in an apparent effort to appeal to moderate voters, even though it was immediately panned by anti-abortion leaders.
After being implored by advisers and allies to focus more on policy, he embarked on a weeklong tour of battleground states with events focused on different issues each day. Behind the scenes, he worked to earn the endorsement of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced Friday that he’s suspending his campaign for president.
But Trump is most often guided by his own political instincts, despite calls for discipline on the campaign trail.
While he read closely from teleprompters at some of his policy speeches this week, he veered off at times — particularly during a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, when he joked that he was going to fire his advisers for telling him to stay away from personal attacks on Harris. And in addition to a team of advisers who just joined the campaign from his affiliated super PAC MAGA Inc., Trump — who is often nostalgic for 2016 — brought on a controversial adviser, his former 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
His public burying of the hatchet with Kemp, however, was the most notable of the steps Trump has taken in recent days to try to right the ship.
Trump’s post late on Thursday night praising Kemp brought “a sigh of relief in Republican circles here,” said Stephen Lawson, a veteran Republican operative based in Georgia. “It’s the best message to come out of Donald Trump’s campaign in the last month. It’s that plain and simple. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Brian Kemp is critical to Donald Trump winning the White House again.”
Republican strategist Josh Holmes wrote on X that Trump extending an olive branch to Kemp was “far more significant than anything in Chicago tonight.”
Trump’s public bashing of Kemp sparked serious concerns among Georgia Republicans that the former president was jeopardizing his chances in a critical battleground state with 16 electoral college votes up for grabs. And over the last week, Kemp and his team received an uptick in calls from Trump-aligned donors, according to a person with knowledge of the outreach, granted anonymity to speak freely.
Kemp, who is widely seen as having his own future political ambitions after he completes his second term as governor — ranging from a potential run for president in 2028 to a possible Senate bid in 2026 — has an interest in being seen as a GOP team player. And more immediately, Kemp is invested in ensuring Republicans in the state legislature maintain their majority, as Democrats are working to erode that buffer by targeting swing district voters.
Trump’s public reckoning with Kemp started after the governor was invited on Sean Hannity’s show Thursday night. Trump watched live as Kemp stressed the importance of Republicans getting out the vote from the top to bottom of the ticket. It was nearly identical to what he’d said in recent months elsewhere.
But Trump was pleased that Kemp mentioned his name and complimented his policies several times during the interview — something Kemp has also done publicly during recent interviews. While much of the interview was Kemp reiterating his usual message about not taking votes for granted in the swing state and working to get Republicans elected at all levels there, on Thursday he specifically said, “We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House.”
Kemp was also asked by Hannity, who is close to Trump, about his election integrity efforts in the state. Kemp said elections would be “secure, accessible, and fair.” Since the 2020 election, Trump has been frustrated with Kemp for refusing to go along with his baseless claims about the election being rigged and stolen.
The moment came after Hannity, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and others made the case on television that Trump needed to refocus.
“We’re 40 days away from early voting, we don’t have time for this,” Hannity said on his show about Trump’s feud with Kemp.
Kellyanne Conway made the case on Fox Business that the “winning formula” is “fewer insults, more insights.” Vivek Ramaswamy told POLITICO he has also advised the former president to “shift the focus to policy.”
Bill White, a donor and friend of Trump’s who has been critical of Kemp, on Friday said he made a $1,000 contribution to Kemp’s federal political action committee as a gesture of good will. He said he and other donors and officials who were involved with the Trump-Kemp peace talks would “continue to help make the relationship a smooth and an enjoyable one.”
“I think the testosterone levels are all back to normal and we’re now unified,” White said. “And the message is that Gov. Kemp wants President Trump to win and save our country from World War III.”
Among those involved in the back and forth between the two camps, or who spoke to Trump or Kemp, were former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher; Brian Jack, a Republican congressional candidate in Georgia and former Trump adviser; Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon; Graham; Lt. Gov. Burt Jones; and Sonny Perdue, the former Georgia governor and Trump’s agriculture secretary, according to four people aware of the efforts.
Outreach to Kemp also came from Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who campaigned in Georgia on Thursday.
“I read the headlines,” Vance told reporters during a campaign stop. “Brian Kemp and Donald Trump have had some disagreements. I 100 percent, guarantee you, that Brian Kemp is behind this ticket.”
On Thursday, Kemp and Vance had a text exchange, which came on the heels of a phone call between the two men, initiated by Vance, according to a person with knowledge of their communication. Kemp and Vance, according to another person familiar, have a good relationship.
Republican voters “want Donald Trump to show that he cares more about the cause than his personal grievances,” said Cole Muzio, the president of Frontline Policy Action in Georgia and a Kemp ally. “This was a basic hurdle Trump needed to clear.”
