Trump takes a detour via the blue state with the Coachella rally

CNN
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Donald Trump's schedule for the final weeks of the 2024 election is peppered with detours to predominantly Democratic states.

From California's Coachella Valley on Saturday to New York's Madison Square Garden later this month, the former president is turning away from the months-long slog through swing states where the campaigns of Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expected to decide the race.

Republicans are under no illusions about winning in the deep blue states he visits – although Trump, who for years has refused to accept his defeat in 2020 and has spread lies about widespread voter fraud, claimed this week that in California, a state with more support than Harris he lost by 29 percentage points four years ago.

“If there was an honest election in California, I think I would win it by a landslide. I really do,” the former president said on “The John Kobylt Show,” a talk radio show in Southern California, complaining about the state’s mail-in voting procedures.

But Trump's allies argue that the blue-state stops are more than undisciplined sideshows designed to satisfy the Republican candidate's whims.

Although Democrats dominate in California and New York, the states' overall size means they are home to large numbers of Republican voters and donors, providing fundraising opportunities and helping to pull back candidates, particularly in closely contested House races.

“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 venue was “a great piece of land.”

The events also give Trump an opportunity to portray the problems facing the states he is in as a result of Democratic leadership.

That's the playbook Trump used in Detroit on Thursday when he warned that if Harris wins, “our whole country will end up like Detroit.”

But unlike Michigan's largest city, Trump can make similar comments in blue states without worrying about electoral blowback – particularly in California, where Harris was attorney general and U.S. senator.

“President Trump's trip to Coachella will highlight Harris' poor record and show that he has the right solutions to save every state and every American,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Trump's campaign is also expected to draw huge, raucous crowds and garner outsized media attention – which would pay dividends across the political map.

“The location of his rallies is less important in this nationalized media environment. His messages reach all 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 have to report on it,” a senior Trump adviser told CNN.

Trump advisers argue that the voters his campaign is targeting in the final weeks of the race are those who don't typically engage in politics — and so trips like the one he took to Aurora, Colorado, on Friday deliver to hammer Harris on immigration, content that has much more reach online than a typical swing-state campaign event.

For the same reason, Trump's campaign has had the former president sit down with popular YouTube streamers and podcasters. Harris' campaign has pursued a similar strategy in recent weeks, targeting specific groups of voters through her appearances on podcasts and other interviews.

“There’s a reason we do podcasts. There's a reason we do Adin Ross and MMA. There’s a reason we do these things,” a senior Trump adviser said.

Trump's rally 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 are inconsistent with the values ​​of our community,” Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez said in a statement posted on social media ahead of Trump’s visit.

“He has consistently expressed his disdain for the kind of diversity that is Coachella,” Hernandez said. “We don’t know why Trump is visiting near Coachella, but we do know he wasn’t invited by the people who live here. He’s not like us.”

But the former president believes 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 sayings is “too big to manipulate” – the idea that he must win in such a landslide that no one will question his victory.

“He believes that these crowds will show it and show that there is no way she can win,” said one person close to Trump.

In many ways, Trump sees these large-scale rallies as a barometer of his performance. In his opinion, he expects that the larger the crowd, the better it will do in November.

On Tuesday, Trump will make another blue-state stop in Illinois and attend an event co-sponsored by Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago.

Trump is also planning a return to New York – where he has held rallies in the Bronx and Long Island in recent weeks to appeal to non-white men who have supported Democrats in the past.

The September stop on Long Island was originally 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.

Madison Square Garden on October 27 will give Trump legendary theater in his hometown just over a week before Election Day.

Trump has long touted a rally at Madison Square Garden. But sources close to the former president were hesitant to announce the rally even after the deal was already in place, citing external pressure that could be brought to bear on the venue, particularly from influential New Yorkers, to back out.

While Trump lost the Empire State by more than 20 points in both 2016 and 2020, he insisted at his Long Island rally in September that he had a chance of winning the state in November.

“Trump is increasingly fixated on the idea that his supporters in states not seen as crucial to the 2024 election deserve a chance to see him and attend a rally,” a person close to Trump said. “In some cases, such events can be an even bigger draw because for many people it is their only chance to attend a rally.”

Trump exudes confidence about his performance in the blue states he visits. He claimed Friday in Aurora that he is “very close” to the reliably Democratic state — even though there is no evidence of that.

Still, the main strategic purpose of these trips is to brief Democrats on the issues that Trump's campaign sees as his strongest, including crime and border security.

Trump, who has spread false and lurid claims about a takeover of Colorado by Venezuelan gang members, attacked the state's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, on Friday.

“This guy doesn’t see what you see. He doesn’t see people storming 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 speed up the deportation of undocumented gang members if he wins in November. He also called for the death penalty for “any migrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer.”

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, told CNN's Jake Tapper that Trump lied about migrant crime in Colorado – but that from a political perspective he was somewhat “happy” to see the former president in the state.

“There’s no way he’s going to win Colorado State,” Bennet said. “From a political perspective, I think it’s a complete waste of time.”