As Democrats gather in Chicago this week for their national convention, Republicans will engage in some counter-programming attempting to blunt the momentum Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed since replacing President Joe Biden atop the Democrats’ national ticket.

Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will make their national debut atop the ticket after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month, following a disastrous debate performance in June.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the White House, said in an interview with Spectrum News that he does not plan on yielding the spotlight. 

“I’ll probably be doing a rally or two during it, but we’ll be doing some counter,” the former president said.

Trump's campaign on Friday announced that both he and running mate JD Vance will hold events in Pennsylvania on Monday afternoon ahead of the DNC; Trump will speak in York, while Vance will deliver remarks in Pennsylvania. 

It’s become an article of faith that during president election years, when one party holds its national convention, the other will engage in counter-programming. However, one political analyst said the shifting media landscape allows the opposing campaign to lay low, should they choose to.

“Now new social medias have created so many alternative ways of communicating, and the sophistication with data usage has created so many different ways of micro targeting to specific populations that campaigns simply don't need to communicate the way that they used to,” said Brian Rosenwald, scholar in residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rosenwald argued that social media can ease the need for a candidate to hold a rally or press conference to grab the spotlight.

Still, he expected Trump and other Republicans to engage in more traditional campaigning in hopes of blunting Harris’ rise in the polls.

“They're going to talk about how whatever Harris proposes is going to drive up prices or be bad economically. You know, all those kind of typical, standard Republican rhetoric... All that kind of stuff is going to continue to be the Republican message, no matter, really what the Democrats say,” said Rosenwald.

Large rallies have been Trump’s signature campaign tactic since he first ran for the White House eight years ago. The benefits of staging one during the Democrat convention are obvious, Rosenwald said.

“It gets the troops kind of worked up and fired up and gets them donating, and gets them volunteering, and gets them talking about Trump,” he said.

Regardless of what Trump plans to do, Republicans are expected to offer a unified message next week in hopes of taking the wind out of Harris’ sails.