Don't let Trump's buzzy sideshows distract you from his traditional swing-state strategy

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : Trump boasted at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month that his campaign was making plays in New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota and New Mexico.
59% : Trump is, at his core, more showman than tactician.
52% : With 17 stops, Trump has made more appearances in Pennsylvania between July 20, the day after the Republican National Convention, and Oct. 22 than in any other state, according to a POLITICO review of his public schedule that sometimes includes holding multiple events in the same state on the same day.
52% : That's followed by 11 events each in North Carolina, where Trump wrapped a two-day campaign swing on Tuesday, and in Michigan, where he is due to return for rallies on Friday and Saturday.
51% : But since accepting his party's nomination in July -- in battleground Wisconsin -- Trump has spent the vast majority of his time on the campaign trail in the seven states that are likely to decide who wins the White House: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.
49% : Trump is doing "what he always does, which is find some way for us to all over think and discuss what he's doing, and make himself the center of the universe," said Jason Roe, a Michigan-based Republican strategist.
45% : Trump is blitzing the Rust Belt -- with a particular focus on Pennsylvania, where he has visited well over a dozen times in the past three months -- as he tries to recapture the "blue wall" states that broke his way in 2016 but not in 2020.
40% : Still, parachuting into non-battleground states often provides Trump more reward than risk -- giving him buzzy crowds, days of headlines and national platforms through which to broadcast his message to his wider base.
36% : Madison Square Garden may be more personal for Trump than strategic -- a legacy play in what the former New Yorker has said will be his final presidential bid, even if he loses.
34% : Trump has long drawn outsize attention for staging rallies in enemy territory -- such as when he drew thousands of people to the beachside community of Wildwood, New Jersey, or when he held a rally over the summer in the heart of the Bronx.
31% : And Trump has made five appearances in Nevada and four in Arizona, where he also has stops planned for later this week.
28% : A similar effect could come if Trump follows through with visiting Springfield, Ohio, of which he has promoted baseless claims of Haitian migrants eating pets.
25% : "When Trump descended on the Denver suburb of Aurora earlier this month, the national press followed, amplifying some of his darkest and most dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants far beyond the confines of the Colorado city that locals say the former president has mischaracterized as a "war zone" overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
24% : "But that's because Mitt Romney was a far more conventional candidate than Trump is," Williams said.
23% : Rep. Ken Calvert, an endangered Republican in California's 41st Congressional District, saw a polling boost after Trump rallied in Coachella, according to a national Republican strategist involved in House races.
22% : Trump and Harris were running even in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada on Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight polling averages, while the Republican held a slight edge in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
10% : Reach states, once seemingly within grasp for Trump as Biden's campaign derailed over the summer, remain just that against Harris.

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