By Michael R. Blood and Meg Kinnard | Related Press
COACHELLA, Calif — With the presidency on the road in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, why would Donald Trump enterprise into California, one of the crucial solidly Democratic states, simply weeks earlier than Election Day?
Trump is sort of sure to lose California, and that received’t change after his scheduled Saturday cease in Coachella, a desert metropolis east of Los Angeles greatest recognized for the annual music competition bearing its title. Nonetheless, there are sensible causes for him to go to, regardless of the Republican nominee’s prospects Nov. 5 in probably the most populous state.
The previous president misplaced California in a landslide in 2020. He did get 6 million-plus votes, greater than any GOP presidential candidate earlier than, and his margins topped 70% in some rural counties that usually favor conservatives on the poll.
That’s an unlimited pool of potential volunteers to work on state races and take part in cellphone banks into probably the most contested states. And Trump is probably going to attract intensive media protection within the Los Angeles market, the second-largest within the nation.
Trump is visiting Coachella in between stops in Nevada, at a roundtable in Las Vegas for Latinos earlier Saturday — the place he praised Hispanics as having “such energy” — and Arizona, for a rally Sunday in Prescott Valley. He narrowly misplaced these two swing states to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Attendees ready in broiling temperatures that approached 100 levels Saturday stated they didn’t count on Trump to win their state however had been thrilled to see him.
“It’s like a convention of like-minded people,” Tom Gibbons of Palm Desert, who’s backed Trump since 2016 however been unable to see him in individual till Saturday, stated as he stood in line at a meals truck on the polo fields that can home the group on the Coachella occasion. “Everybody understands the heartbeat of America, the plight of the working man. … It’s reassuring.”
Going to California offers Trump the “ability to swoop in and leverage this big population of Trump supporters,” stated Tim Lineberger, who was communications director for Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign in Michigan and likewise labored within the former president’s administration. He’s “coming here and activating that.”
Lineberger recalled Californians making calls to Michigan voters in 2016 on Trump’s behalf and stated the marketing campaign’s choice to enter protected, Democratic turf at this level was “an aggressive, offensive play.”
California can also be a fountain of marketing campaign money for each events, and Trump shall be fundraising. Images with the previous president in Coachella had been priced at $25,000, which comes with particular seating for 2. A “VIP Experience” was priced at $5,000.
With congressional races in California in play that would decide which get together controls the Home, the Coachella rally “is a get-out-the-vote type of thing that motivates and energizes Republicans in California, when they are not as close to what is going on in the national campaign,” Republican marketing consultant Tim Rosales stated.
For Republicans, “It’s motivating when you can pick at California a little bit and the governor … will take the bait,” Rosales stated.
“You know, that’s not what Trump is going to say,” he predicted.
Jim Brulte, a former chairman of the California Republican Occasion, stated he thinks Trump is angling for one thing that has eluded him in earlier campaigns: successful extra whole votes than his Democratic opponent.
“I believe Donald Trump is coming to California because he wants to win not only in the Electoral College, but he wants to win the popular vote. There are more registered voters in California than there are residents in 46 of the other 49 states,” Brulte stated.
The Trump Nationwide Golf Membership Los Angeles sits on the Pacific Coast, south of the town. However Trump has lengthy had a conflicted relationship with California, the place a Republican has not carried the state since 1988 and Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by about 2-to-1.
California was dwelling to the so-called Trump resistance throughout his time in workplace, and Trump usually depicts California as representing all he sees fallacious in America. As president, he referred to as the homeless crises in Los Angeles and San Francisco disgraceful and threatened to intercede.
He’s more likely to spend time on Saturday linking California’s issues to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee and a San Francisco Bay Space native who was California’s legal professional normal and represented the state within the Senate.
His marketing campaign issued a press release alleging that underneath Harris, “the notorious ‘California Dream’ has turned into a nightmare for everyday Americans.”
Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the state GOP, stated she regarded ahead to listening to Trump distinction his agenda with a Democratic White Home that “has left Californians less safe and with less money in their pockets.”
Republicans, she promised, “will do our part to secure a House majority.”
Tom Beaumont in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
