Advisers worry whether ‘happy Trump’ or ‘angry Trump’ will show up to debate

Donald Trump’s campaign is most concerned going into the debate against Kamala Harris with the former president’s mood, afraid that the mercurial Trump could engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the situation.

The campaign’s internal refrain is whether they get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump”, the people said, as they count down the days to perhaps the final presidential debate this cycle.

Tuesday night’s televised debate is widely seen as a crux moment in the rebooted 2024 campaign. Since Joe Biden dropped out of the race after a campaign-killing debate performance crystalized fears over his age and mental acuity, Harris has turned the race on its head.

But Harris’s upward trajectory appears to have crested and Trump’s advisers have been looking at the debate as their best chance to retake the momentum after weeks of being humped out of the news cycle. Their hope, the people said, is to get the Trump who was fast on his feet during the debate against Biden.

Their concern is getting angry Trump. If Trump becomes frustrated on the stage, it could bring out his worst instincts to make ad hominem insults in the vein of recent attacks on Harris that have turned increasingly personal and extreme to the extent that is has exasperated some of his own supporters.

Trump has struggled historically with Black women in positions of power, and the campaign is bracing for him not to repeat recent comments that questioned Harris’s race or openly misogynistic comments, and more broadly, if he launches into lengthy and rambling diatribes that have become a feature of his rallies.

The anxiety over Trump’s mood on the day reflects the reality that the campaign has been looking at the debate as the best opportunity for Trump to try and reset the race after playing defense against Harris for weeks – and the risks of doing so.

Trump’s senior advisers continue to insist that they are pursuing multiple strategies against Harris, but the true picture that has emerged is that their game plan currently consists of hoping Trump wins the debate to gain back momentum.

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That campaign strategy – or lackthereof – betrays the serious predicament for Trump and his campaign as he struggles to find ways to land effective attacks against Harris less than two months before the election.

What has happened internally in the Trump campaign in recent weeks is the realization that nothing they did in the period up to the debate cut through in a significant way that blunted Harris’s gains that have her level in key swing state polls, the Guardian has previously reported.

Trump has had some success in cutting through the news cycle in recent weeks, including when he took over headlines after the Democratic national convention when Robert F Kennedy Jr gave his endorsement to the Republican nominee.

But the reality is that good news for Trump has mostly been in short supply and his own vice-presidental pick, Ohio senator JD Vance, has done little but create negative headlines. Meanwhile, Harris’s pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been warmly received by Democrats and cemented the idea that Harris now leads a united and rejuvenated Democratic party.

With Trump struggling to frame the narrative against Harris, the general posture inside campaign leadership is to write off the regular programming that won’t change the race – and look to a debate that might.

Related: Trump threatens to jail adversaries for ‘unscrupulous behavior’ if he wins

The pivot to praying Trump does well at the debate could work. Trump can be a tough opponent, and has knocked opponents back in 2016 and 2020 with an avalanche of disorientating false claims.

The campaign also feels that Trump can use the debate as an opportunity to get across to a national primetime audience his messaging points criticizing Harris on policy – accusing Harris of allowing waves of illegal immigrants and not cracking down on crime – that have so far not broken through.

As the reasoning goes, even if the television networks decline to air Trump’s rallies or remarks criticizing Harris day-to-day, they will be forced to air Trump and his attack lines when he has the floor.

Trump’s advisers have also been buoyed by the fact that microphones will be muted when it is not a candidate’s turn to speak, believing it defangs Harris in being able to fact-check him in real time and in her ability to make quips of her own.