Former President Donald Trump is deviating from the battleground this week to host rallies in New Mexico and Virginia — states that haven’t voted for the Republican presidential candidate in two decades and where he lost by double digits in 2020 — and is flirting with a trip to New Hampshire.

Trump heads to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday with new confidence in his campaign that he is in such good shape to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris that he can afford to divert his attention from the seven key battleground states where the two parties have focused. entirely of the breed.

A Trump campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the strategy freely said last week’s firestorm is part of a strategy to expand the map and take advantage of what the campaign sees as Trump’s diverse coalition and is the favorable positioning on the map. the broader momentum it claims to see among the electorate.

“Trump has created a broad and diverse coalition by uniting the Republican Party, attracting independents and appealing to disaffected Democrats with his message,” the official said.

“The momentum also includes states that have recently favored a Democrat,” the source added. “All Americans understand that Kamala broke our borders, our economy and our ability to lead in the world.”

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The question, as Trump speaks Thursday in a city a mile above sea level, is whether his campaign is making a major contribution on its own or is based on a reality that public opinion polls have overlooked. In the vast majority of independent surveys in New Mexico, Virginia and New Hampshire in recent weeks, Trump is trailing by more than five points.

New Hampshire came closest, with one outlier in the New Hampshire Journal showing the race was tied. But Trump and his team see indicators that he could break into unexpected territory with the wind at his back in the final week of the election.

Trump is focused on boosting turnout in the countdown to Election Day, the Trump campaign official said, and part of the strategy includes hammering home his closing message to create a contrast with Harris on the pillars of his closing argument: immigration, inflation and foreign wars.

A second Trump campaign official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said if it goes to a state, it’s because the campaign is seeing movement there.

The Harris campaign provided no comment.

There is no indication that Trump already holds all or any of the seven major swing states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. Trump lost in 2020 by fewer than 44,000 votes across Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. He will have to turn a number of battlegrounds to reach the 270-vote threshold in the Electoral College and win back the White House.

The decision to campaign outside these locations — including a rally at Madison Square Garden in deep-blue New York and a news conference in Republican-leaning Florida on Wednesday — has led some Republicans to conclude that Trump is overruling the political professionals on his team .

“There’s no chance that anyone focused on 270 electoral votes is going to Virginia and New Mexico,” said a senior official who was a member of Trump’s 2020 campaign team. “So Donald Trump is running his own campaign right now. Point. Point.’

But current campaign officials say Trump and his team understand the relative value of each visit to each state and that they would not plan rallies in Albuquerque and Salem, Virginia, if they did not believe he had a chance to win those states. .

Trump’s political director James Blair said in an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday that polls have historically underestimated Trump’s support and that there are indications that could be the case again. Since 2020, states like Arizona have shown a right-wing movement that potentially bodes well for Trump, Blair said. He said Trump had also brought new people into the Republican Party, which might not be a positive thing, according to the polls.

Trump has no time to lose at this stage of the race, the second campaign official said. The races in those states could quickly close at the end, and they will be in play if there is an election error in Trump’s favor, this official said, adding that his campaigns in neighboring states — pairs such as Arizona and New Mexico and Virginia and North Carolina – can bleed in either direction.

If Trump ends up in New Hampshire, this person said, it will be because he is boosting his numbers in the Northeast during his campaign, at a time when New Hampshire is the most competitive of the New England states.

In another show of confidence, the Trump campaign recently sent former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to Omaha, Nebraska, and the ruby ​​red state’s “blue dot,” which Joe Biden carried by more than 6 percentage points in 2020. and where recent public opinion polls show Harris with an even bigger lead. Both spoke at Trump’s rally in New York, and Gabbard joined Trump in North Carolina, a swing state, just days earlier.

The campaign sounds resolutely optimistic.

“I won’t feel comfortable until the race is known; you always run like you’re 10 points behind,” Blair told Fox News. “But based on everything that is measurable now, things are looking very, very good for President Trump.”