{"id":43904,"date":"2024-09-15T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T09:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=43904"},"modified":"2026-07-10T02:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:43:16","slug":"trump-likely-to-win-if-harris-doesnt-focus-on-swing-states-kim-darroch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/09\/15\/trump-likely-to-win-if-harris-doesnt-focus-on-swing-states-kim-darroch\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump likely to win if Harris doesn\u2019t focus on swing states- Kim Darroch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donald Trump will remain the \u201clikelier winner\u201d of the US presidential election on 5 November unless the Democratic nominee,\u00a0Kamala Harris, addresses key failings in her campaign, a former British ambassador to Washington says on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kim Darroch says that despite clearly getting the better of Trump in last week\u2019s televised head-to-head debate, Harris risks making two crucial mistakes in the final weeks of campaigning, which mean the former Republican president is still the favourite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kamala<\/a>
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has been advised to be \u2018laser-focused\u2019 in her campaign in the US swing states Photograph: Lev Radin\/ZUMA Press Wire\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With a Trump return to the White House on the cards, Lord Darroch says it is important that the prime minister,\u00a0Keir Starmer, who met US president Joe Biden and other leading Democrats in Washington on Thursday, should also now be seeking a meeting with Trump and his team before polling day, so he has built links with both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is important that if Starmer meets one, he meets both,\u201d Darroch says in an article for the Observer<\/em>. \u201cIt will be noticed and resented by the Trump team if he doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darroch was UK ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, when he\u00a0resigned in a row over leaked confidential emails\u00a0in which he criticised Trump\u2019s administration as \u201cclumsy and inept\u201d. Darroch\u2019s position became untenable after Boris Johnson, then involved in the Tory leadership contest to succeed Theresa May, failed to give the ambassador his unequivocal backing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darroch, who remains a respected figure in diplomatic circles on both sides of the Atlantic, says Trump is now \u201ca less formidable campaigner\u201d than in 2016, \u201cdown on energy, more liable to become confused, with a mind cluttered with grievances. And he remains a policy-free zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But,\u201d he adds, \u201che is still capable of connecting with the \u2018left behind\u2019 to a level few others can match, a talent which ensures a devoted and enduring support base in a country where one in three workers say they live paycheck to paycheck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darroch argues that the Democratic campaign is at risk of making two hugely important errors. Urging Harris to be \u201claser-focused\u201d on voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin won by Biden in 2020, Darroch warns that they may drift back to Trump unless Harris is able to offer \u201csome crisply worded, specific, targeted policies to bring jobs and hope back to these blighted neighbourhoods\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second error is that Harris appears to be hiding from the media, repeating a mistake made by\u00a0H<\/a>illary Clinton. \u201cBack in 2016, Trump was ever-present. He would accept any and every invitation. He would even, unbidden, phone the morning news shows to offer his views on the day\u2019s issues. By contrast, Hillary Clinton locked the media out \u2013 and lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris, he claims \u201cseems to have adopted the Clinton playbook\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Keir<\/a>
UK prime minister Keir Starmer has been advised to meet Donald Trump\u2019s team by former British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch. Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Darroch says the UK embassy in Washington will no doubt be advising Starmer to try to meet Trump, perhaps taking time out from a meeting of the UN general assembly this week to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a lot to discuss with him, starting with his views on Ukraine. And however badly Trump performed in the debate, however visible his personal decline, he remains for many of us the likelier winner.\u201d Last week, Starmer\u2019s former pollster Deborah Mattinson met Harris\u2019s campaign team in Washington to share details of how Labour pulled off its\u00a0stunning election win\u00a0by targeting key groups of \u201csqueezed working-class voters who wanted change\u201d, further strengthening contacts with the Democratic side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump will remain the \u201clikelier winner\u201d of the US presidential election on 5 November unless the Democratic nominee,\u00a0Kamala Harris, addresses key failings in her campaign, a former British ambassador to Washington says on Sunday. Kim Darroch says that despite clearly getting the better of Trump in last week\u2019s televised head-to-head debate, Harris risks making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5178,5090,157,5268,10387,12679,11399,9375,913,6576,12246,911,6060,5494,11491,1143,7407,2471,11398,3114,8331,11544,1828,9974,9765,10634,8126,9833,3334,6574,7039,3805,11377,1776,3174,6944,5807,1568,255,12605,6879,5180,5465,1687,9262,184,6348,11331,2354,6571,2982,6934,594],"class_list":["post-43904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-biden","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-british","tag-campaign","tag-clinton","tag-debate","tag-decline","tag-democratic","tag-democrats","tag-diplomatic","tag-election","tag-embassy","tag-energy","tag-harris","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jobs","tag-joe-biden","tag-kamala","tag-kamala-harris","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kim-darroch","tag-labour","tag-leadership","tag-leaked","tag-lost","tag-match","tag-meeting","tag-michigan","tag-pennsylvania","tag-phone","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-presidential-election","tag-prime-minister","tag-republican","tag-risk","tag-theresa-may","tag-tory","tag-uk","tag-uk-ambassador","tag-ukraine","tag-un","tag-un-general-assembly","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-president-donald-john-trump-jr","tag-us","tag-us-president","tag-washington","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-wisconsin","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43906,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43904\/revisions\/43906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}