In closing stretch, Trump is defying polls and betting that voters care more about immigration than the economy

(CNN) — At last month’s presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed violent migrant gangs were “taking over” Aurora, Colorado, amplifying and exaggerating a disputed rumor his supporters had spread across the internet in the days leading up to his nationally televised face-off with Kamala Harris.

Now, the former president is set to hold a rally in Aurora, thrusting this midsize Mountain West city into the spotlight once again, along with the topic Trump hopes will decide this race: immigration.

Trump has all but staked his presidential campaign on convincing Americans that closing the border and kicking out those who illegally crossed it are the most pressing priorities for the country. It’s a pitch he has delivered with increasingly dark and offensive rhetoric that leans into stereotypes of foreigners from poorer countries.

He has claimed – over the repeated objections of state and local leaders, including from his own party – that Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the pets” of the local residents. To the residents in a tiny Wisconsin town, he warned against what people from all over the world were “doing to the fabric, to the guts of our country.” This week, Trump espoused nativist arguments about some immigrants having “bad genes,” which cause them to commit crimes.

It’s a closing argument, though, that carries considerable risk. A steady stream of polls throughout the year and leading up to the final weeks of the presidential race have repeatedly affirmed that the economy is the issue of greatest concern to the most number of voters. In a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS, more than 4 in 10 likely voters said the economy was the most important issue as they chose a candidate to lead the country. Only 12% said immigration ranked highest for them.

Against this reality, Trump’s own campaign appears to have altered its approach to persuading the electorate in key battleground states by turning away from their candidate’s favored message. In August, the Trump campaign spent about $15.5 million on television ads centered on immigration. For the next month, though, such ads about immigration were almost nonexistent on the airwaves.

Meanwhile, the campaign shifted even more ad dollars to messaging about the economy, accounting for about 77% of its broadcast advertising spending in September.

In the face of this polling, though, Trump is betting on his gut, telling a Wisconsin crowd on Sunday, “I really don’t agree” that the economy will decide the election.

“I know they do all these polls, and the polls say it’s the economy, and the polls say very strongly it’s inflation, and I can understand it a little bit,” Trump said. “To me, it’s the horrible people that we’re allowing into our country that are destroying our country. And it’s the hardest problem to solve too.”

On comfortable ground

Illegal immigration is certainly comfortable terrain for Trump. He launched his first White House bid in 2015, railing against Mexican “drugs,” “crime” and “rapists” entering the country. He then centered his campaign on a promise to “build the wall” at the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, something he failed to fulfill as president.

Still, the 458 miles of new and replacement wall his administration built along the US-Mexico divide serve as a physical - yet unfinished - reminder of his long-standing fixation with keeping outsiders from entering the country illegally.

Trump regularly laments that as an incumbent in 2020, he could no longer galvanize support around the issue he believed won him the White House the first time. In his own retelling – which he often shares with supporters at rallies – “I wanted to talk about the border. My people said, ‘Sir, nobody wants to talk about the border anymore.’”

That is no longer the case as Trump seeks the Oval Office once again. The former president has resurfaced many of his promises from eight years ago, including a pledge to finish the wall and another to initiate the largest mass deportation in American history by deputizing local and state law enforcement to remove millions of undocumented people across the country.

It’s an issue he brings up in most public appearances – even at events that are purportedly centered on other topics. Speeches advertised as remarks on the economy, crime or inflation often begin and end with extended riffs on his favorite topic, at times overshadowing the message he was on hand to deliver.

For example, during a visit to Savannah, Georgia, that his campaign billed as “remarks on the tax code and US manufacturing,” Trump said the word “border” 29 times, outpacing mentions of “manufacturing.” In Tucson, Arizona, Trump stood in front of signage that said “Make Housing Affordable Again” but spent more time warning against migrants “taking Hispanic jobs, taking African American jobs, taking people that have been here a long time.” The first reference to “housing” came 30 minutes into his speech.

Trump has at times publicly panned his advisers for attempting to put such guardrails on his remarks.

“We’re doing this as an intellectual speech. We’re all intellectuals today,” Trump said in a mocking tone in August in Asheville, North Carolina, where he was supposed to speak about the economy. “They say it’s the most important subject. I think crime is right there. I think the border is right there, personally.”

Trump’s campaign pointed out that he has also held events centered on immigration, including a recent visit to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, that featured small-town Americans whose lives were upended by violent acts committed by undocumented individuals.

It also argued that immigration remains a top issues for many voters. A recent Gallup poll found 72% of Americans saying it was an “extremely” or “very” important topic – the highest point in the organization’s survey going back two decades. However, much of that is driven by Republicans, 63% of whom said the issue was “extremely” important to their choice in November.

That poll also showed independents split between Trump and Harris over who would handle the issue better.

Harris has lately sought to cut into Trump’s perceived strength on the issue. In late September, she made her first visit to the US border as a presidential candidate. In a town hall Thursday hosted by Univision, she accused Trump of tanking a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, asserting he wanted “run on a problem.”

“Donald Trump found out about that bill, realized it would be the solution, and told them not to put in on the floor for a vote because he would prefer to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem,” Harris said. “Real leadership is about solving problems on behalf of the people.”

‘A bloody story’

There should be no misconceptions about Trump’s appearance in Aurora on Friday, which his campaign announced in a press release saying, “Kamala’s border bloodbath has made every state a border state.”

How Aurora became a flashpoint in the race is illustrative of the speed at which online right-wing fixations enter the mainstream. Trump’s supporters seized footage from an apartment complex in the city that captured men wielding guns walking down hallways, in one case kicking open a door, followed by several women and small children.

The images rapidly spread around social media, with Trump supporters claiming they depicted Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex. The building’s owner appeared to verify that description, but the city said the substandard housing conditions maintained by the landlord were the issue, not migrants. Meanwhile, local police have encountered some gang activity tied to a Venezuelan group, but rejected theories that the gang has taken over any buildings in the city.

That didn’t stop Trump, though, from seizing on the episode and escalating the falsehoods by claiming that Venezuelan gangs were taking over swathes of Colorado. He then foreshadowed a violent intervention if he is elected.

“You know, getting them out will be a bloody story,” he told supporters at a Wisconsin rally last month.

After Trump mentioned Aurora in the debate, the city’s mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican former congressman, said in a statement that the “overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true.”

Trump had similarly planned a visit to Springfield, Ohio – another city besieged by right-wing conspiracy theories about its migrant population – but backtracked after local authorities warned of the damage it would do to the community.

Coffman, though, told a local Colorado news outlet that he welcomed Trump’s visit.

“If he comes here, I see it as an opportunity to show him the city,” he said, “and break the narrative that this city is out of control when it comes to Venezuelan gangs.”

CNN’s David Wright, Caitlin Stephen Hu, Rafael Romo and Belisa Morillo contributed to this report.

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