'Very unconventional': Political reporter reacts to Trump's latest move

(CNN) — Donald Trump’s schedule in the closing weeks of the 2024 election is dotted with detours into overwhelmingly Democratic states.

From California’s Coachella Valley on Saturday to New York’s Madison Square Garden later this month, the former president is veering away from the monthslong slog through the swing states that the campaigns of Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both expect to decide the race.

Republicans have no illusions about winning the deep blue states he is visiting – though Trump, who for years has refused to accept his loss in 2020 and spread lies about widespread voting fraud, this week claimed he has more support than Harris in California, a state he lost by 29 percentage points four years ago.

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

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

Though Democrats dominate California and New York, the states’ overall size means they’re home to huge numbers of Republican voters and donors, creating fundraising opportunities and helping down-ballot candidates, particularly in competitive House races.

“We have a lot of support in California, and I felt I owed it to them,” Trump told Kobylt, adding that the Coachella Valley rally venue is “a great piece of land.”

The events also give Trump opportunities to cast the problems facing the states he’s in as the result of Democratic leadership.

That’s the playbook Trump used Thursday in Detroit, when he warned that if Harris wins, “our whole country will end up being 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 a US senator.

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

Trump’s campaign also expects to draw huge, raucous crowds, and command outsized media attention – which would pay dividends across the political map.

“The location of his rallies matters less in this nationalized media environment. His messaging is making it to all the 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 guys have to cover it,” a senior Trump adviser told CNN.

Trump advisers argue that the voters his campaign is targeting in the race’s closing weeks are those who do not typically engage in politics – and so trips like the one he made to Aurora, Colorado, on Friday to hammer Harris on immigration provide content that has much more reach online than a typical swing-state campaign rally.

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

“There’s reason why we’re doing podcasts. There is a reason why we’re doing Adin Ross and MMA. There’s a reason why we’re doing those things,” one senior Trump adviser said.

Coachella rally

Trump’s rally Saturday at the Calhoun Ranch in the Coachella Valley drew criticism from a number of local officials.

“Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us don’t align 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 disdain for the type of diversity that helps define Coachella,” Hernandez said. “We don’t know why Trump is visiting near Coachella, but we know he wasn’t invited by the people who live here. He ain’t like us.”

However, the former president believes large-scale rallies in blue states like the one he’ll hold Saturday show how deep his support runs across the nation.

They also set the groundwork for Trump to question the election results should Harris win. One of the former president’s go-to lines is “too big to rig” — the idea that he must win in such a landslide that no one will question his victory.

“He thinks those crowds show, and will show, there’s no way she can win,” a person close to Trump said.

Trump in many ways views these large-scale rallies as a barometer for how he is performing. In his mind, the bigger the crowd, the better he expects to do in November.

Chicago, New York plans

On Tuesday, Trump will make another blue state stop in Illinois, attending an event cosponsored 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, part of his effort to appeal to non-White men who have historically supported Democrats.

The September stop on Long Island had initially been 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 to after the election.

Madison Square Garden on October 27, meanwhile, will give Trump a legendary theater in his hometown, a little more than a week from Election Day.

Trump has long teased a Madison Square Garden rally. But sources close to the former president were hesitant to announce the rally, even after the deal had been done, noting the external pressure that could be put on the venue, particularly by powerful New Yorkers, to pull out.

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

“Trump has increasingly been fixated on this idea that his supporters in states not viewed as crucial to the 2024 election deserve to have an opportunity to see him and attend a rally,” a person close to Trump said. “In some cases, those events can be an even bigger draw since it’s the only chance a lot of people have to go to a rally.”

‘A complete waste of his time’

Trump is projecting confidence in how he’ll perform in the blue states he’s visiting. He claimed Friday in Aurora that he is “very close” in the reliably Democratic state — though there’s no evidence to support that.

Still, the main strategic purpose of those trips is to hit Democrats on issues Trump’s campaign sees as its strongest, including crime and border security.

Trump, who has been promoting false and sensationalized claims about Venezuelan gang members taking over Colorado, attacked the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, on Friday.

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

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump was lying 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 the state of Colorado,” Bennet said. “And so, from a political point of view, I think this was a complete waste of his time.”

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