Granted, I haven’t watched the news since Donald Trump tested positive for coronavirus (it feels like that happened months ago, right?), but doesn’t it seem like Ivanka Trump has been in the wind for a while? Part of me thinks that Ivanka is quietly figuring out her post-White House plans, and perhaps considering a move out of the country. But another part of me realizes that Ivanka *has* been campaigning on behalf of her father, and the reason we aren’t hearing that much about her is because she sucks at it. Take this recent campaign appearance:

Ivanka Trump says that during the pandemic she's been playing board games and learning guitar. pic.twitter.com/Bf3kR96QER

— The Recount (@therecount) October 19, 2020

In case you don’t want to hear her lisp through her fake teeth, she says: “During this pandemic, we’ve reconnected to some of life’s simple pleasures. Board games, for example. We’ve dusted off all of ours, for sure. I took up playing guitar, because my husband was working very late nights. I’d come home, after I’d put the kids to bed and after I went back online and finished my work, I’d be sitting there, and so I taught myself — or am teaching myself — how to play guitar.” Ah, yes. So relatable! To be a wife, a mother of three, senior advisor to the president, daddy’s favorite child AND deal with the pandemic by playing board games and teaching yourself to play the guitar. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are unemployed and being evicted because of the pandemic, which Ivanka’s administration has done nothing about.

But that’s not all! Apparently, this is all part of some kind of last-ditch effort by the Trump campaign. They think Ivanka will help them win back suburban white women. LOL.

The Trump campaign’s last-ditch effort to win back the suburban women fleeing the president in the polls has fallen to one person: Ivanka Trump. In the past six weeks, Trump has made personal appeals for her father at 17 campaign stops, engaging in intimate question-and-answer sessions where she tells stories about the president. She’s made stops at local businesses to pose with children in Halloween costumes. She’s bought cider and doughnuts. She’s rolled out bread for baking.

It’s the traditional politicking that is hard to imagine coming from any other Trump family member, let alone President Donald Trump himself. Her brothers, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and her sister-in-law, Lara Trump, are mostly sent out to throw red meat to Trump’s conservative base. So Ivanka Trump has become the de facto head of the eleventh-hour campaign to appeal to swing voters, specifically the white college educated women who helped propel the president’s come-from-behind victory in 2016.

But with polls showing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden winning that slice of women by 20 percentage points or more, it’s a taxing assignment. Ivanka Trump has visited 10 battleground states — Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona — and expects to campaign in Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina again before the election, one Trump political aide said.

Aides say Trump was eager to hit the campaign trail to ensure that Americans recognize what’s at stake in the election. “She wants to make sure people understand what four more years of Donald Trump means — delivering for and uplifting all Americans,” the first aide said.

Still, political analysts are skeptical that a last-minute attempt to soften the president’s coarse politics will have much of an effect.

“The reality is that women voters are looking at the substance of what’s happened,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It’s kind of late, three weeks out, to try suddenly to be having a different tone and tenor. I don’t think she alone can make up for what these women have been seeing the last four years.”

[From Politico]

I mean… clearly, Melania Trump is not going to do it. Mel said “f–k Christmas” and now she’s pretending to still feel terrible with the coronavirus, which she can drag out for another week and a half and clearly avoid the rest of the election cycle. So it’s left to Ivanka to try to put the glossy, plastic face on fascism. Will it work? I think that much like Eric and Don Jr’s efforts, Ivanka is largely preaching to the Nazi choir. She’s not actually trying to convince swing-voter women to “come back to Trump.” She’s telling white female Trump supporters that they made the right choice, that their whiteness is more important than democracy or fairness or economic stability.

Two Days, Four States! 🇺🇸

Thank you Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan! 🥰

Remember to VOTE for the People’s President ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ on or before Nov 3rd!

Visit https://t.co/4LpkOIzPKE or text VOTE to 88022 to learn more! pic.twitter.com/GdWRuEeRsi

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 22, 2020

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.