Trump rallies in solid blue California in unorthodox campaign move

In the final stretch of the neck-and-neck race for president, former president Donald Trump was holding a rally in deep-blue California.

The Saturday night gathering close to the Coachella Valley, which is famous for its annual music festival, took place 22 days before the November 5 vote.

The final stretch of the election is typically reserved for mad-dash visits to the most competitive battleground states, which include Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada this year.

Trump’s stop in California, a Democratic stronghold, is therefore unusual because it is all but certain to support the vice president’s victory, is a result. Harris, who was both born and raised in the state, was previously the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California. He is still well-known there.

In the last presidential election, in 2020, Trump lost in California to Democrat Joe Biden by nearly 30 percentage points.

Speaking at the rally, Trump said: “The Radical Left Democrats have destroyed this state, but we are going to save it, and we’re going to make it better than ever”.

Before turning to a well-known stump speech that focused on false claims about migrant crime in the US, Trump said, “You definitely had someone here that was horrible, Kamala… and now she wants to destroy our country.”

Despite polls indicating that the economy is at the top of the voter’s agenda, Trump declared migration to be his top priority.

The state visit has been widely viewed as a campaign to bolster Republican support. That is especially important for California’s six crucial House of Representatives races.

This election season, both the House and the Senate, the two branches of the US Congress, are in jeopardy. Additionally, Republicans and Democrats are split in some California congressional districts.

Republicans may be able to control the lower chamber if they win one of the six close races in the House.

Going to California gives Trump the “ability to swoop in and leverage this big population of Trump supporters”, Tim Lineberger, who was communications director for Trump’s 2016 campaign in Michigan and worked in the former president’s administrations, told the Associated Press news agency.

He’s “coming here and activating that”, Lineberger added.

The decision may also serve as a means of increasing Trump’s final vote count. The Electoral College, a weighted voting system that awards candidates’ electors based on the state-level vote, determines who will win the US presidential election.

Nearly all states award all their electors in a winner-takes-all system: Even if a candidate wins by a small margin in a given state, they receive all the electors.

As Trump did in 2016, a candidate could lose in the overall popular vote but still win in the Electoral College system. In 2020, however, he lost in both measures to Biden.

The former Republican president has endured a painful experience despite never having won the popular vote. With a population of nearly 40 million, California has the potential to elect electorate candidates who might not otherwise consider it worthwhile to vote.

Former California Republican Party chairman Jim Brulte told the Associated Press, “I believe Donald Trump is coming to California because he wants to win both the popular vote and the Electoral College.”

Battleground blitz

Trump’s California visit is sandwiched between a rally in Arizona on Sunday and a stop in Nevada on Saturday, which are two battleground states more suited for presidential campaigns in the final weeks.

Trump’s campaign aimed to capitalize on indications that Latino men are increasingly turning away from Democrats at a roundtable with Latino voters in Nevada.

For her part, Harris visited North Carolina, which was recently devastated by Hurricane Helene. She claimed that her visit was “first and foremost to see how they’re doing in the wake of the hurricane.”

Additionally, Harris was scheduled to meet with Black community leaders and promote her “opportunity economy.” North Carolina was only marginally defeated by Trump in the 2020 presidential election, but the eastern state has been favored by Democrats in some recent polls, thanks to its large Black and college-educated population.

Harris released the results of a health exam earlier in the day. She was described as having “the physical and mental resilience necessary to successfully carry out the presidency’s duties.”

Harris quickly demonstrates that the 78-year-old Trump has not passed on health exams, which has long been a practice for presidential candidates in the US.

She told reporters, “It is obvious that he and his team do not want the American people to really see what he is doing and whether or not he is actually fit to serve as president of the United States,” she said.

Trump’s campaign claims that the former president “has voluntarily released updates from his personal doctor” and the doctor who treated him following a July assassination attempt.

Source: Aljazeera