() – Donald Trump’s calendar in the final weeks of the 2024 election is full of detours to overwhelmingly Democratic states.
From California’s Coachella Valley this Saturday to New York’s Madison Square Garden later this month, the former president is departing from his long campaign through the key states that both the Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns are hoping for. that decide the contest.
Republicans have no illusions about winning the deep blue states he is visiting, although Trump, who for years has refused to accept his 2020 defeat and has spread lies about widespread voter fraud, claimed this week that he has more support than Harris in California, a state that lost by 29 percentage points four years ago.
“If they had an honest election in California, I think I would win it by a wide margin. I really believe that,” the former president said on The John Kobylt Show, a Southern California radio show, while complaining about the state’s mail-in voting procedures.
But Trump allies argue that the stops in blue states are more than undisciplined sideshows designed to satisfy the Republican candidate’s whims.
Although Democrats dominate California and New York, the states’ overall size means they are home to large numbers of Republican voters and donors, creating fundraising opportunities and helping other Republican candidates, particularly in competitive House races. of Representatives.
“We have a lot of support in California, and I felt like I owed it to them,” Trump told Kobylt, adding that the Coachella Valley rally site is “a big piece of land.”
The events also give Trump an opportunity to present the problems facing Democratic-led states.
That’s the approach Trump used Thursday in Detroit, when he warned that if Harris wins, “our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”
But unlike in Michigan’s largest city, Trump can make similar comments in blue states without worrying about electoral repercussions, particularly in California, where Harris was attorney general and a U.S. senator.
“President Trump’s trip to Coachella will highlight Harris’ failed record and show that he has the right solutions to save every state and every American,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said in a statement.
Trump’s campaign also hopes to draw large, rowdy crowds and garner disproportionate media attention, which would pay dividends across the political map.
“The location of your rallies matters less in this nationalized media environment. Your message is reaching all major media markets no matter what you do. 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 told .
Trump’s advisers argue that the voters his campaign is targeting in the final weeks of the race are those who typically don’t engage in politics, which is why trips like the one he made to Aurora, Colorado, on Friday to criticize Harris on immigration provide content that has much more reach online than a typical rally in a key state.
It’s the same reason the Trump campaign has had the former president sit down with popular YouTube streamers and podcasters. Harris’ campaign has employed a similar strategy in recent weeks, targeting specific groups of voters with her podcast appearances and other interviews.
“There’s a reason we’re doing podcasts. There’s a reason we’re showing up with Adin Ross and in MMA. “There’s a reason we’re doing those things,” said a senior Trump adviser.
Trump’s rally this Saturday at Calhoun Ranch in the Coachella Valley drew criticism from several local officials.
“Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us do not align with the values of our community,” Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez said in a statement posted on social media earlier of Trump’s visit.
“He has consistently expressed disdain for the kind of diversity that helps define Coachella,” Hernandez said. “We don’t know why Trump is touring Coachella, but we know he wasn’t invited by the people who live here. “It’s not like us.”
However, the former president believes that large-scale rallies in blue states like the one he will hold on Saturday show how deep his support runs across the country.
They also lay the groundwork for Trump to challenge the election results if Harris wins. One of the former president’s favorite lines is “too big to handle” — the idea that he must win by such a wide margin that no one will question his victory.
“He believes those crowds show, and will show, that there is no way she can win,” said a person close to Trump.
Trump, in many ways, sees these large-scale rallies as a barometer of how he is performing. In his mind, the bigger the crowd, the better he’ll do in November.
On Tuesday, Trump will make another stop in a blue state, Illinois, where he will attend an event co-sponsored by Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago.
Trump is also planning to return to New York, where he has held rallies in the Bronx and Long Island in recent weeks, as part of an attempt to appeal to non-white men who have historically supported Democrats.
The September stop on Long Island had initially been scheduled to coincide with Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush money trial in Manhattan, before the judge overseeing the case ultimately pushed the date back until after the election. .
Meanwhile, Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27 will give Trump a legendary theater in his hometown, just over a week before Election Day.
Trump has long been hinting at a rally at Madison Square Garden. But sources close to the former president were hesitant to announce the rally, even after the deal had been struck, and pointed to the outside pressure that could be put on the venue, particularly from powerful New Yorkers, to withdraw.
Although Trump lost that state by more than 20 points in both 2016 and 2020, he insisted at his Long Island rally in September that he has a chance of winning there in November.
“Trump has become increasingly obsessed with this idea that his supporters in states not considered crucial to the 2024 election deserve a chance to see him and attend a rally,” said a person close to Trump. “In some cases, those events can be an even bigger draw, since it is the only opportunity many people have to go to a rally.”
Trump is projecting confidence in how he will perform in the blue states he is visiting. He claimed Friday in Aurora that it is “very close” in the traditionally Democratic state, although there is no evidence to support that.
Still, the main strategic purpose of those trips is to hit Democrats on issues that the Trump campaign views as its strongest, including crime and border security.
Trump, who has been promoting false and sensational claims about Venezuelan gang members taking over Colorado, attacked the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, on Friday.
“This guy doesn’t see what you see. “You don’t see people breaking into buildings with AK-47s, military-style weapons, sometimes better than our own military,” he said.
Trump said he would create a federal program to expedite the deportation of undocumented gang members if he wins in November. He also called for the death penalty for “any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer.”
Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet told ‘s Jake Tapper that Trump was lying about crimes committed by immigrants in Colorado, but that from a political perspective, he was somewhat “happy” to see the former president in the state.
“There is no way Colorado State wins,” Bennet said. “And so, from a political point of view, I think this was a complete waste of time.”
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