Donald Trump’s handlers are pushing him to embrace a campaign format that is smaller and more intimate than the raucous arena rallies the former president prefers: the town hall-style forum.
And while Trump’s reluctance can be palpable — last week he swayed to music rather than take questions from the crowd — advisers see an opportunity to narrow a yawning gender gap.
Since late August, six of his town halls have been moderated by a prominent woman in politics or media. A seventh, produced by Fox News, was also hosted by a woman, Harris Faulkner, and had an audience filled with women. (One other town hall this month, hosted by Univision, had a male moderator.)
That’s no coincidence in a race where his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, would be the first woman — and first woman of color — to be elected president.
“It’s a campaign that’s adapting,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking and the campaign’s planning but who was not authorized to speak on record said, “to show a softer side of Donald Trump.”
Trump is surrounding himself with “high-profile females who all offer the opportunity for Trump to have conversations that women care about,” the person added.
So far, Trump has partnered on town halls with Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Govs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and Kristi Noem of South Dakota; Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former ESPN anchor Sage Steele. (A virtual town hall with self-help guru Tony Robbins was canceled this month because of Hurricane Milton.)
“As the first woman to lead my state and one of many women President Trump empowered in the White House, I was proud to stand with the President in Michigan and help encourage every American to vote for a lower cost of living, a secure border, and a strong America by electing Donald J. Trump as President,” Huckabee Sanders, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary and moderated a forum last month in Flint, Michigan, said in a statement to NBC News.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has held two town halls, one moderated by Steele, the other by former professional race car driver Danica Patrick.
A national NBC News poll of registered voters this month that showed the candidates in a dead heat found women favoring Harris over Trump by a 14-point margin and men favoring Trump by 16 points. The poll found abortion as the top motivating issue — and Harris’ best against Trump.
The town hall play for women stands in contrast to the aggressive effort his team has made for male voters. The campaign has prioritized podcasts — on Friday, Trump is scheduled to record an episode for Joe Rogan’s show — and alternative media popular with young men.
Trump also is known for behavior and rhetoric that can turn off women. He won in 2016 despite revelations that he had once bragged that his celebrity status allowed him to sexually assault women. He was found liable last year of sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. And he has repeatedly mispronounced Harris’ first name and questioned her intelligence. Vance has come under fire for referring to Harris and other Democrats as “childless cat ladies.”
And while Trump has said he believes abortion is an issue best left to states, Democrats worry about GOP efforts to pass a national ban or restrictions on the procedure.
“We see that there is one candidate who has lived a life like ours and is going to champion our ability to get ahead, take care of our families and to make our own decisions about our bodies and our health care, and that’s Kamala Harris,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Harris campaign co-chair, said Thursday at an event in her state when asked about the gender gap.
There is little guarantee that the town halls, at this late stage of the race, will help Trump with women, or at least prevent him from losing more ground than he can afford to with them. The choice of friendly moderators — all selected by the campaign are Republicans, including Gabbard, a former Democrat who switched parties this year and endorsed Trump — ensures there are no tough questions. The Fox News forum’s all-female audience was stacked with Trump supporters.
The town halls have provided memorable and, at times, awkward moments.
At the forum she moderated in Flint, Huckabee Sanders swiped at Harris by alluding to the vice president’s lack of biological children and saying that her own kids “keep me humble.” When the remark prompted pushback from Harris, who said not all women aspire to be humble, Huckabee Sanders clarified that she “would never criticize a woman for not having children” and said that Harris had shown that she “doesn’t believe our leaders should be humble.”
During the Noem town hall last week in Oaks, Pennsylvania, Trump ditched the question-and-answer format in favor of playing music from his personally curated playlist. The bizarre spectacle, which came after two attendees required medical attention, reignited questions about his mental fitness. One source familiar with the planning of the event said there had been a miscommunication between Noem and Trump after the medical issues.
And the Fox News town hall featured Trump calling himself the “father of IVF” while also acknowledging that Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., had to explain to him what in vitro fertilization is.
But overall, Trump avoids the grilling he often gets from less partisan or more mainstream media outlets, like his interview last week with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait. Trump later told podcaster Patrick Bet-David that he thought he would be delivering a speech and was “hoodwinked” into the sit-down Q&A session.
At a town hall Sunday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Steele, the former ESPN anchor who has gained prominence in conservative media, was exceptionally accommodating.
“Are you ready to make America great again?” she asked the audience, using Trump’s long-running campaign slogan. “On that note, please, please help me welcome the 45th and soon to be the 47th president of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump!”
Questioners from the audience had been selected in advance, most of them on boilerplate topics ranging from crime to the economy. Steele sprinkled in her own questions and occasionally bailed out Trump when he meandered into problematic territory.
“We have to get rid of the people that are now there,” Trump said during a segment on immigration and border security before seeming to criticize Harris. “She is so bad.”
Steele interjected: “I’m sorry. When you say, ‘Get rid of the people who are there’ — some of the illegals that are here?”
“No, no,” Trump replied. “I’m talking about the politicians that are allowing this to happen.”
The source familiar with Trump’s thinking and the campaign’s planning acknowledged that the rally-loving Trump was initially “pissed” about the idea of doing town halls. But the media, the source added, “is more inclined to [cover] something from a town hall meeting than from a rally,” the latter of which often involves a mashup of shopworn Trump grievances and talking points.
“The first one he didn’t love, until everyone told him these are amazing,” the source said. “He loves them now.”
