Former US president Donald Trump has finally learned a key rule of politics - never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.

The presumptive Republican nominee has largely disappeared from the national stage in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, clearing way for Democrats’ anxieties to overwhelm the news cycle and ratchet up political pressure on his opponent. 

Aside from a celebratory rally last Friday, Trump has largely gone silent - even cancelling a planned television interview with a Virginia network, according to local outlet 13News Now. After flirting with announcing his vice presidential pick in the days before the debate, his campaign reverted to original plans to unveil the pick closer to the Republican convention. 

Trump has been rewarded by an opponent in freefall, with polls showing the Republican candidate widening his lead over the president both nationally and in swing states, while Democratic lawmakers openly declare that they don’t believe their party will retain control of the White House in November.

The former president and his advisers concede they don’t know how the episode will resolve itself, and that they are not sure how Biden withdrawing from the ticket might impact the race’s dynamics. Vice President Kamala Harris, in particular, could offer voters a younger face and offset inroads Trump has made with women, independents, and voters of colour.

“I’m going to show up, and I’m going to campaign whether it’s him or somebody else,” Trump said in an interview with Richmond, Virginia radio station WRVA.

But Trump’s relative self-restraint has given Republican strategists hope that he will be able to avoid pitfalls of his own making through the campaign’s final four months. 

“Trump can be a disciplined messenger when he wants to be,” Republican strategist Doug Heye said in an interview. “By staying out of the spotlight - not announcing a veep pick, for instance - he keeps the very negative spotlight on Biden.”

Democrats, by contrast, have desperately tried to bring Trump’s behaviour back into the headlines - to no avail. Biden’s bid to focus attention on Trump’s conduct after the Supreme Court offered a broad interpretation of presidential immunity was quickly overwhelmed by his own political woes.

Aides at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware headquarters have said returning focus to Trump is essential, as the president charts an increasingly narrow path back to competitiveness. On Wednesday, his team released a new ad arguing Trump “already led an insurrection and threatened to be a dictator”.

“We must remind people of the choice in this election,” Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in an email to staff.

Publicly, Trump has commented little on the calls for Biden to drop out of the race and the growing uncertainty within Democratic ranks, though he did express scepticism in his WRVA interview.

“If he doesn’t want that to happen, then it can’t happen because he has the votes,” Trump said on Monday. “He’s got all these delegates.”

Laying low has offered the former president other advantages. For one, his campaign has avoided spending money on costly rallies - helping to preserve a cash advantage over the president. It has also allowed for some holiday-week golfing at Trump’s Bedminster club in New Jersey.

Trump and his top advisers have expressed scepticism that Biden would step aside, but have ratcheted up attacks on Harris and other Democrats as the clamour for the president to exit the race has grown. 

In a statement on Wednesday, Trump senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles argued that Democrats had purposely hid the truth of Biden’s physical and mental state. 

“President Trump will beat any Democrat on Nov 5, because he has a proven record,” they said, going on to call Harris a “cackling copilot”.

MAGA Inc, the political action committee supporting Trump’s bid, released a statement calling Harris the administration’s “invasion czar” - in reference to the vice president’s portfolio addressing the root causes of migration - and attacking her record on immigration and the economy.

A post-debate CNN survey released on Tuesday found that Harris was polling better than Biden in a hypothetical match-up against Trump. While the Republican candidate led Harris 47% to 45%, he was favoured over Biden by a 49% to 43% margin.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released an ad on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday that highlighted Biden’s age, and reminded voters that Harris would be next in line.

“This November: Vote Republican. Stop Kamala,” the ad read, while videos of Harris laughing played to the tune of ominous music. 

  - Bloomberg