By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and MEG KINNARD
With the presidency on the road in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spent Saturday evening in Riverside County in solidly liberal California, in search of to hyperlink Vice President Kamala Harris to what he described because the failures of her residence state.
Trump is nearly sure to lose the state, and that received’t change after his Saturday cease close to Coachella, a desert metropolis finest recognized for the annual music festival bearing its identify. Nonetheless, Trump took benefit of his go to to tear into the nation’s most populous state, citing its current struggles with homelessness, water shortages and an absence of affordability. Harris, the Democratic nominee, was beforehand the state’s junior senator and legal professional normal.
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“We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” Trump mentioned, referring to the state as as “Paradise Misplaced.”
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 sometimes favor conservatives on the poll.
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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 drew media protection within the Los Angeles market, the second-largest within the nation.
Trump visited the Coachella Valley in between stops in Nevada, at a roundtable in Las Vegas for Latinos earlier Saturday — the place he praised Hispanics as having “such vitality” — and Arizona, for a rally Sunday in Prescott Valley. He narrowly misplaced these two swing states to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Attendees who waited in broiling temperatures that approached 100 levels Fahrenheit mentioned they didn’t anticipate Trump to win their state however had been thrilled to see him.
“It’s like a conference of like-minded individuals,” mentioned Tom Gibbons of Palm Desert, who’s backed Trump since 2016 however been unable to see him in individual till Saturday, as he waited in line. “Everyone understands the heartbeat of America, the plight of the working man … It’s reassuring.”
Going to California provides Trump the “potential to swoop in and leverage this huge inhabitants of Trump supporters,” mentioned Tim Lineberger, who was communications director for Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign in Michigan and in addition labored within the former president’s administration. He’s “coming right here and activating that.”
Lineberger recalled Californians making calls to Michigan voters in 2016 on Trump’s behalf and mentioned the marketing campaign’s resolution to enter protected, Democratic turf at this level was “an aggressive, offensive play.”
California can be a fountain of marketing campaign money for each events, and Trump can be fundraising. Pictures with the previous president on the Coachella-area occasion had been priced at $25,000, which comes with particular seating for 2. A “VIP Expertise” was priced at $5,000.
Talking for 80 minutes Saturday evening, Trump ran by way of the usual checklist of Republican complaints in regards to the Democrat-dominated state — its giant variety of immigrants within the U.S. illegally, its homeless inhabitants and its thicket of laws — and waded right into a water rights battle over the endangered Delta smelt that has pitted environmentalists towards farmers.
The previous president was significantly scathing about unlawful immigration, warning at one level: “Your kids are in peril. You may’t go to highschool with these individuals, these persons are from a distinct planet.”
He continued his long-running spat with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom Trump known as “New-scum.” Trump once more threatened Newsom over the water rights battle, saying that if he didn’t act in favor of farmers, “we’re not supplying you with any of that fireside cash that we ship you on a regular basis for all of the forest fires that you’ve.”
Through the speech, Trump launched well-known supporters on the occasion.
They included Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who’s pondering a bid for governor in 2026, and Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, who’s in a tight reelection campaign against Democrat Will Rollins. He additionally identified actors Dennis and Randy Quaid.
Republicans beforehand listed numerous potential causes for Trump’s go to.
With congressional races in play that might decide which celebration controls the Home, the Coachella-area rally “is a get-out-the-vote kind of factor that motivates and energizes Republicans in California, when they don’t seem to be as near what’s going on within the nationwide marketing campaign,” Republican advisor Tim Rosales mentioned.
Jim Brulte, a former chairman of the California Republican Celebration, mentioned he thinks Trump is angling for one thing that has eluded him in earlier campaigns: successful extra whole votes than his Democratic opponent.
“I consider Donald Trump is coming to California as a result of he needs to win not solely within the Electoral School, however he needs to win the favored vote. There are extra registered voters in California than there are residents in 46 of the opposite 49 states,” Brulte mentioned.
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 residence 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 known as the homeless crises in Los Angeles and San Francisco disgraceful and threatened to intercede.
Newsom on Wednesday predicted Trump can be denigrating his state on the rally, overlooking its strengths because the world’s fifth-largest financial system. The governor mentioned that for the primary time in a decade, California has extra Fortune 500 firms than some other state.
“, that’s not what Trump goes to say,” he predicted.
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