[45] Since his three predecessors (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama) won re-election, had Trump been reelected, it would have been the first time in American history that four consecutive presidents were elected to two terms.

[94][95][96][97] During the rally, Trump promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare') and defended his revised travel ban, which was put on hold by Derrick Watson, a federal judge in Hawaii, hours later.

[107][108] The ad buy, which included advertisements targeted at voters who supported specific agenda items of Trump's presidency,[107] came approximately 42 months before election day 2020,[39][108][109] or any other major party's candidate declarations.

[113] Because of this accusation against the news media, CNN decided to stop running the ad, a decision that campaign manager Michael Glassner criticized as an action to "censor our free speech".

[139] At the rally, Iowa GOP state chairman Jeff Kaufmann verbally attacked Nebraskan senator Ben Sasse, who was speculated by some as a potential challenger to Trump in the 2020 Republican primaries.

[176] Lara Trump, while working for the reelection campaign, had reportedly held private political meetings with government officials such as Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Veteran Affairs Committee chairman Phil Roe and Representative Ron DeSantis.

"[181] On March 13, Trump made his first trip to the state of California as president to attend a campaign fundraiser at the Beverly Hills home of Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Ed Glazer.

[186]On June 20, Trump held a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, supporting Republican Congressional candidate Pete Stauber in the 2018 midterm elections[187] and addressing his own 2020 prospects[188] in the state among other subjects.

The president continued, asking of the simultaneous Nevada Democratic Party convention in Reno featuring Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, "Wacky Jacky is campaigning with Pocahontas, can you believe it?

This year, the usual straw poll was not held, and on the last day, Trump made a two-and-a-half hour-long speech,[200] which was covered live by C-SPAN and Fox News and was prominently featured in media throughout the world.

On March 28, the president held a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during which he reveled in his alleged "exoneration" calling for Democrats to apologize for the Russia investigation and to stop the "ridiculous bullshit".

[225][226] At a campaign rally on July 17 in North Carolina, Trump criticized four Democratic congresswomen (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib), stating: "They never have anything good to say.

The Obama administration and other governments and non-governmental organizations were concerned that Shokin was not adequately pursuing corruption in Ukraine, was protecting the political elite, and was regarded as "an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts".

The New York Times characterized Trump as using the address "to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism".

The Washington Post reported that while "amplifying racism and stoking culture wars have been mainstays of Trump's public identity for decades, they have been particularly pronounced this summer as the president has reacted to the national reckoning over systemic discrimination by seeking to weaponize the anger and resentment of some white Americans for his own political gain.

[292][293] On July 19, in an interview aired on Fox News, Trump called the network's poll showing Biden leading by 8% "fake", further saying he would "have to see" if he would accept a loss in the election, citing postal voting as a way it would be rigged against him.

[295][b] Responding to the comments and the president's handling of the pandemic, Timothy Egan writes in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump "should do humanity a favor and surrender now", saying this could "save many lives of supporters who have listened to the lethal quackery from the presidential podium".

[309] Television advertising was expected to resume on August 3, with a focus on states that will vote the earliest;[310] a new campaign ad features altered images to falsely portray Biden as "alone" and "hiding" in his basement.

"[316] On August 17, Miles Taylor, former chief of staff to former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, published an op-ed in The Washington Post and featured in an ad from Republican Voters Against Trump.

[325][326][327] On the final night of the convention, Trump stated:Your vote will decide whether we protect law abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.

"[e] Then, prompted by Ingraham to discuss how Biden's campaign was being financed, he said, "The money is coming from some very stupid rich people who have no idea that if their thing ever succeeded, which it won't, they will be thrown to the wolves like you've never seen before.

[331] Barr also told CNN that he believed that China was the biggest active threat to U.S. election security (contradicting U.S. intelligence, which had identified Russia) and that foreign adversaries would likely sow the system with fraudulent mail-in ballots (although he admitted he had no evidence of this).

The spending included routine matters, and legal work involving the Russia investigation and his impeachment, as well as relating to enforcement of nondisclosure agreements with former associates and his personal business interests.

[351] Meanwhile, the Trump campaign ran video and pictorial advertisements on Facebook, YouTube, and Google, which falsely claimed that Joe Biden used a teleprompter during an April 2020 interview with James Corden.

[355] On September 25, Trump unveiled his "Platinum Plan for Black America", promising $500 billion in capital access, as well as "creating 3 million new jobs, and bridging historic disparities in health care and education" and making Juneteenth a national holiday.

He asked that Trump and campaign advisor Dan Scavino's testimony be permanently sealed because it would give an "unwarranted competitive advantage" to his opponents in the 2024 presidential election, and because it "could be used against them in other, parallel, litigations unrelated to this matter.".

Opinion polls conducted in 2020 almost always showed Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading Trump nationally in general election matchups, with the former vice president's advantage usually extending beyond the margin of sampling error.

[424][425] Trump's national polling numbers fell heavily again following his performance at the first presidential debate and his COVID-19 diagnosis at the end of September and beginning of October, as Biden's lead returned to double digits regularly.

"[460] Former GOP strategist and Lincoln Project activist Rick Wilson, noting that Parscale bought a Ferrari, a Land Rover, a waterfront house and a yacht, said the campaign's leaders "are taking Donald Trump to the cleaners".

[463] On August 7, Marc Lotter, a spokesperson for Mike Pence, confirmed to MSNBC's Hallie Jackson that the vice president had hosted Republican donors, including mega-donors Charles and David Koch, at Number One Observatory Circle.