Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is pursuing a strategy of expanding his appeal by reaching out to audiences beyond friendly conservative media outlets, multiple advisers familiar with the strategy said, including a CNN town hall this week.
The town hall event in New Hampshire Wednesday evening, Trump’s first appearance on CNN since the 2016 election, joins a list of other signs that Trump is adopting a more traditional campaign in his third run for the White House.
The former president has surrounded himself with a more organized, experienced team to complement his unconventional campaign style. He’s also scaling back larger rallies, a Trump campaign trademark, for more intimate campaign settings and retail stops that allow the former president to engage with voters.
“Look, there are three camps of people: those who will always be with Trump, those who aren’t sure and those who will never be with him,” one Trump adviser told CNN. “We are working on getting the support of every single person in that middle category.”
That approach speaks to an acknowledgment by the Trump campaign and its allies that the former president must broaden his appeal inside and outside the Republican Party if he is to clinch the GOP nomination and retake the White House in 2024, following his failed reelection bid and disappointing results by Republicans in last year’s midterm elections. The process is being driven by a team of veteran political operatives, skilled in matters such as the delegate process, who believe Trump’s path to victory cannot simply be a reprisal of his insurgent 2016 bid or his large, expensive 2020 operation.
The former president’s team has increased its outreach with traditional news outlets, taking questions from television and print correspondents on recent campaign swings from organizations Trump has spent years…
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