CNN
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Donald Trump’s schedule in the closing weeks of the 2024 election is dotted with detours into overwhelmingly Democratic states.
From California’s Coachella Valley on Saturday to New York’s Madison Square Garden later this month, the previous president is veering away from the monthslong slog by the swing states that the campaigns of Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris each count on to resolve the race.
Republicans don't have any illusions about profitable the deep blue states he's visiting – although Trump, who for years has refused to settle for his loss in 2020 and unfold lies about widespread voting fraud, this week claimed he has extra assist than Harris in California, a state he misplaced by 29 share factors 4 years in the past.
“If they had an honest election in California, I think I’d win it in a landslide. I really do,” the previous president stated on “The John Kobylt Show,” a Southern California discuss radio present, whereas complaining in regards to the state’s mail-in voting procedures.
But Trump’s allies argue the blue-state stops are greater than undisciplined sideshows designed to fulfill the Republican nominee’s whims.
Though Democrats dominate California and New York, the states’ total measurement means they’re residence to enormous numbers of Republican voters and donors, creating fundraising alternatives and serving to down-ballot candidates, notably in aggressive House races.
“We have a lot of support in California, and I felt I owed it to them,” Trump advised Kobylt, including that the Coachella Valley rally venue is “a great piece of land.”
The occasions additionally give Trump alternatives to solid the issues going through the states he’s in because the consequence of Democratic management.
That’s the playbook Trump used Thursday in Detroit, when he warned that if Harris wins, “our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”
But not like Michigan’s largest metropolis, Trump could make related feedback in blue states with out worrying about electoral blowback – notably in California, the place Harris was legal professional common and a US senator.
“President Trump’s trip to Coachella will highlight Harris’ failing record and show that he has the right solutions to save every state and every American,” Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung stated in an announcement.
Trump’s marketing campaign additionally expects to draw enormous, raucous crowds, and command outsized media consideration – which might pay dividends throughout the political map.
“The location of his rallies matters less in this nationalized media environment. His messaging is making it to all the major media markets regardless of what he does. And the bigger the rally, the more attention it will get, right? I mean, Madison Square Garden? You guys have to cover it,” a senior Trump adviser advised CNN.
Trump advisers argue that the voters his marketing campaign is concentrating on in the race’s closing weeks are those that don't usually have interaction in politics – and so journeys just like the one he made to Aurora, Colorado, on Friday to hammer Harris on immigration present content material that has way more attain on-line than a typical swing-state marketing campaign rally.
It’s the identical purpose Trump’s marketing campaign has had the previous president sit down with widespread YouTube streamers and podcasters. Harris’ marketing campaign has employed an identical technique in current weeks, concentrating on particular teams of voters along with her appearances on podcasts and different interviews.
“There’s reason why we’re doing podcasts. There is a reason why we’re doing Adin Ross and MMA. There’s a reason why we’re doing those things,” one senior Trump adviser stated.
Trump’s rally Saturday on the Calhoun Ranch in the Coachella Valley drew criticism from a quantity of native officers.
“Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us don’t align with the values of our community,” Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez stated in an announcement posted on social media forward of Trump’s go to.
“He has consistently expressed disdain for the type of diversity that helps define Coachella,” Hernandez stated. “We don’t know why Trump is visiting near Coachella, but we know he wasn’t invited by the people who live here. He ain’t like us.”
However, the previous president believes large-scale rallies in blue states just like the one he’ll hold Saturday present how deep his assist runs throughout the nation.
They additionally set the groundwork for Trump to query the election outcomes ought to Harris win. One of the previous president’s go-to traces is “too big to rig” — the concept he should win in such a landslide that nobody will query his victory.
“He thinks those crowds show, and will show, there’s no way she can win,” an individual shut to Trump stated.
Trump in some ways views these large-scale rallies as a barometer for a way he's performing. In his thoughts, the larger the gang, the higher he expects to do in November.
On Tuesday, Trump will make one other blue state cease in Illinois, attending an occasion cosponsored by Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago.
Trump can also be planning a return to New York – the place he has held rallies in the Bronx and Long Island in current weeks, half of his effort to attraction to non-White males who've traditionally supported Democrats.
The September cease on Long Island had initially been scheduled to coincide with Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush cash trial in Manhattan, earlier than the decide overseeing the case finally pushed the date again to after the election.
Madison Square Garden on October 27, in the meantime, will give Trump a legendary theater in his hometown, a little bit greater than every week from Election Day.
Trump has lengthy teased a Madison Square Garden rally. But sources shut to the previous president have been hesitant to announce the rally, even after the deal had been carried out, noting the exterior strain that might be placed on the venue, notably by highly effective New Yorkers, to pull out.
While Trump misplaced the Empire State by greater than 20 factors in each 2016 and 2020, he insisted in September at his Long Island rally he has an opportunity of profitable the state in November.
“Trump has increasingly been fixated on this idea that his supporters in states not viewed as crucial to the 2024 election deserve to have an opportunity to see him and attend a rally,” an individual shut to Trump stated. “In some cases, those events can be an even bigger draw since it’s the only chance a lot of people have to go to a rally.”
Trump is projecting confidence in how he’ll carry out in the blue states he’s visiting. He claimed Friday in Aurora that he's “very close” in the reliably Democratic state — although there’s no proof to assist that.
Still, the primary strategic function of these journeys is to hit Democrats on points Trump’s marketing campaign sees as its strongest, together with crime and border safety.
Trump, who has been selling false and sensationalized claims about Venezuelan gang members taking up Colorado, attacked the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, on Friday.
“This guy doesn’t see what you see. He doesn’t see people bursting into buildings with AK-47s, military style weapons, sometimes better than our own military,” he stated.
Trump stated he would create a federal program to expedite the deportation of undocumented gang members if he wins in November. He additionally referred to as for the loss of life penalty for “any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, advised CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump was mendacity about migrant crime in Colorado – however that from a political perspective, he was considerably “happy” to see the previous president in the state.
“There’s no way he’s going to win the state of Colorado,” Bennet stated. “And so, from a political point of view, I think this was a complete waste of his time.”
