When media pundits analyze campaigns, they tend to follow a predictable pattern. For the campaign that is leading, they point to things that they say are making it do well, while for the campaign that is losing they point to things that they say is hurting them. The problem is that these explanations are highly malleable and if for some reason fortunes get reversed, they will suddenly reverse their explanations as well.

Right now, the creepy Donald Trump-weird JD Vance campaign seems to be losing ground to the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign and there is no shortage of explanations for why this is so. The chief one is that creepy Trump is undisciplined and is going off message to make rambling personal attacks on his opponents. But when creepy Trump was doing well just a month ago when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee, these things were not seen as major liabilities. It seems like when you are winning, you can do no wrong but when you are losing you can do nothing right.

As with any campaign that is faltering, one begins to hear rumblings of dissatisfaction. These come from party supporters and establishment figures who are angry about the turn of events and are concerned about being dragged down with the nominee. They can also come from professional campaign operatives angling to replace those in the campaign leadership, and from those within that leadership seeking to avoid blame for the state of affairs by blaming others. Meanwhile those in charge of the campaign insist that they are doing a great job and that the fault lies elsewhere, usually alleging media bias. So the rumor mill goes into overdrive as various people leak self-serving nuggets of information to the media.

That dynamic is now clearly apparent.

The past month, starting with Joe Biden’s withdrawal and his endorsement of Harris to succeed him, which propelled her to draw roughly even in key swing state polls, has easily been the most unstable moment for the Trump campaign since its formal launch in late 2022.

In that period, Trump has often committed one unforced error after another as he tries to frame arguments against Harris, struggled to break through the news cycle hyping Democrats’ enthusiasm, and suddenly found himself on the defensive with a narrow window left until November.

The sudden difficulty for the Trump campaign to lay a glove on Harris has led to Trump’s allies seeing an opening for the first time to openly challenge decision-making by senior aides and privately challenge whether some advisers should remain in their positions or be sidelined.

And the past month has been bad enough for the Trump campaign that advisers have taken those challenges – whether from enemies real or perceived – as serious threats or slights that necessitate devoting time and effort to slap down.

In a statement referring to the campaign chiefs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, a Trump spokesperson said: “As President Trump said, he thinks Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita are doing a phenomenal job and any rumors to the contrary are false and not rooted in reality.

“This campaign is focused on winning, and anyone not focused on electing President Trump and defeating Kamala Harris is doing nothing but hurting every American. Detractors and lobbyists are waging a destructive battle of rumor and innuendo, and they are well known and will be remembered.”

In seeking a way to get back on top, campaign insiders are saying that creepy Trump needs to be more disciplined and stay away from personal attacks and instead focus on the economy.

But this ignores two things. One is that creepy Trump has always engaged in personal attacks because that is what he is most comfortable with and he will never give it up. He even says that he is entitled to make personal attacks. So he will continue to publicly call Harris ‘dumb’ and it should be no surprise that reports are leaking out that he privately referred to her as a ‘bitch’. This is going to alienate women, many of whom will find this way of disparaging them depressingly familiar from their own professional and private lives.

The second is that creepy Trump thinks he is always correct and hence will never acknowledge that what he was doing was wrong and needs to change. So when things go south, he will do what he always does and blame others for the failures. He will also look for other explanations and say things like that the polls are rigged.

Trump cannot learn from past mistakes because he cannot accept that he ever made a mistake. So if the fortunes of the creepy Trump campaign do not improve soon, he will do what he thinks has worked for him in the past, and I would not be surprised if he makes a major shakeup in his campaign team and fire his top campaign staff, something he did twice in the 2016 campaign and again in 2020. He recently added five new advisers but that may not be the end of it, because adding new people to the campaign at this stage is going to create friction within the team as people jockey for influence.