Trump Tries a New Campaign Tack: Small-Scale

Over the past six weeks on his social media platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump has been posting videos about his policy positions, including plans to protect Social Security and Medicare and ban Chinese nationals from owning U.S. farmland or telecommunications, energy, technology or medical supply companies. The videos, in which the former president speaks directly to the camera, are aimed at reassuring supporters that he’s focused on topics other than his 2020 defeat, an issue that flopped with midterm voters.

One of the key trouble spots for him has been in attracting top-dollar backing. Mr. Trump has largely relied on small online donations but has shed support from some deep-pocketed donors and has struggled to secure commitments from others.

In recent weeks, two longtime Republican financiers — Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder, and Miriam Adelson, a physician and philanthropist and the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate — have not committed to matching their previous financial support for his campaigns, according to people familiar with the discussions who insisted on anonymity to speak about private conversations.

A spokesman for Ms. Adelson said she was planning to sit out the Republican primary.

Still, Mr. Trump maintains his perch as the most powerful Republican. An Emerson College poll this week showed Mr. Trump with support from 55 percent of primary voters, nearly twice as much as his closest competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in a hypothetical matchup. The same poll showed Mr. Trump in a statistical tie against President Biden in a potential rematch next year.

“The campaign is firing on all cylinders and continues to build up an operation that will be unmatched,” Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “President Trump’s significant lead in poll after poll shows that there is no other candidate who can even come close to matching the enthusiasm and excitement of him returning to the White House.”

In November and December, Mr. Trump’s standing among Republicans dipped in public opinion polls after his failure to help deliver the “red wave” he had promised voters in the midterm elections and after he had dinner with Kanye West, who has been denounced for making antisemitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and prominent young white supremacist.