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

Trump travels to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday with renewed confidence that he is in such good shape to beat Vice President Kamala Harris that he can afford to divert his focus from the seven key battlegrounds facing the two sides have concentrated the entirety of the race.

A Trump campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the strategy, said last week’s barnstorming was part of a strategy to expand the map and capitalize on Trump’s diverse coalition and favorable positioning on the map It is claimed that it sees broader dynamics among the electorate.

“Trump has created a broad and diverse coalition by unifying the GOP, attracting independents and appealing to Democrats dissatisfied with his message,” the official said.

“The dynamic includes states that have recently gone Democrat,” the source added. “All Americans understand that Kamala has broken our borders, our economy and our ability to lead the world.”

Follow live updates on the 2024 election

As Trump speaks Thursday in a city a mile above sea level, the question is whether his campaign is successful on its own merits or based on a reality that public polls have missed. The vast majority of independent polls in New Mexico, Virginia and New Hampshire in recent weeks have Trump trailing by more than five points.

New Hampshire was the closest, with an outlier poll in the New Hampshire Journal showing the race as a tie. But Trump and his team see signs that he could push into unexpected territory with the wind at his back in the final week of the election.

Trump is focused on increasing voter turnout in the countdown to Election Day, the Trump campaign official said, and part of the strategy is to craft his closing message to contrast with Harris on the pillars of his closing argument: immigration, Inflation and wars abroad.

A second Trump campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity and speaking freely, said that if it goes to a state, it’s because the campaign is seeing movement there.

The Harris campaign had no comment.

There is no indication that Trump has all or any of the big seven swing states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina – in his pocket yet. Trump lost in 2020 by fewer than 44,000 votes, split between Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. He must flip several battlegrounds to reach the 270-vote threshold in the Electoral College and win back the White House.

The decision to campaign outside those venues — 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 outvoting the political professionals on his team.

“There is no chance that someone focused on 270 electoral votes will go to Virginia and New Mexico,” said a senior official who was part of Trump’s 2020 campaign team. “So Donald Trump is running his own campaign at this point. Point. Ending.”

But current campaign officials say Trump and his team understand the relative value of each visit to each state and that they wouldn’t be planning rallies in Albuquerque and Salem, Virginia, if they didn’t believe he had a chance of winning those states .

In an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, Trump political director James Blair said polls had underestimated support for Trump in the past and that there were signs that could be the case again. Since 2020, states like Arizona have shown a shift to the right, which may bode well for Trump, Blair said. He said Trump has also brought new people into the Republican Party, which may not be positive in the polls.

Trump has no time to lose in this phase of the race, said the second campaign manager. The races in those states could end up tightening quickly, and they will be in play if there is a polling error in Trump’s favor, this official said, adding that his campaign is running in neighboring states – pairings like Arizona and New Mexico as well Virginia and North – which took place in Carolina – can bleed to death in either direction.

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

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

The campaign sounds decidedly optimistic.

“I won’t feel comfortable until the race is called; “You always run like you’re 10 points behind,” Blair told Fox News. “But from everything that can be measured right now, things are looking very, very good for President Trump.”