CNN
—

Donald Trump’s schedule for the final weeks of the 2024 election is littered 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 deviating from the months-long 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 visits — although Trump, who for years has refused to accept his 2020 loss and spread lies about widespread voter fraud, claimed this week that he has more support than Harris in California, a state four years ago he lost by 29 percentage points.

“If they had had a fair election in California, I think I would win by a wide margin. Really,” the former president said on “The John Kobylt Show,” a radio talk show in Southern California, as he complained about the state’s vote-by-mail procedures.

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

Although Democrats dominate California and New York, the states’ overall size means they are home to large numbers of Republican voters and donors, creating fundraising opportunities and helping candidates vote out candidates, especially in competitive House elections. races.

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

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

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

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

“President Trump’s visit to Coachella will highlight Harris’ failed record and demonstrate 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 large, raucous crowds and draw outsized media attention — which would pay dividends across the political map.

“The location of his meetings matters less 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 cover it up,” 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 typically stay out of politics — so trips like the one he took to Aurora, Colorado, on Friday to hammer Harris on immigration offer substance which has a lot to offer. more reach online than a typical swing-state campaign rally.

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

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

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

“Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us do not align with the values ​​of our community,” Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez said in a statement released ahead of Trump’s visit social media was posted.

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

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

They also laid the groundwork for Trump to question the election results if Harris won. One of the former president’s guiding principles is ‘too big to rig’: the idea that he must win in such a landslide that no one will question his victory.

“He thinks the public is showing, and will show, that there is no way they can win,” said a person close to Trump.

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

On Tuesday, Trump will make another Blue State stop in Illinois, where he will 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 as part of his effort to appeal to nonwhite men who have historically supported Democrats.

The September stop on Long Island was initially scheduled to coincide with Trump’s sentencing in his Manhattan hush money trial in New York, before the judge overseeing the case ultimately pushed back the date to after the election.

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

Trump has long teased a rally at Madison Square Garden. But sources close to the former president hesitated to announce the meeting even after the deal was completed, pointing out the external pressure that could be brought to bear on the venue, especially from powerful New Yorkers, to withdraw.

While Trump lost the Empire State by more than 20 points in both 2016 and 2020, he emphasized during his rally on Long Island in September that he has a chance to win the state in November.

“Trump has become increasingly fixated on the idea that his supporters in states not considered crucial to the 2024 election deserve to have a chance to see him and attend a rally,” said a person close to Trump stood. “In some cases, those events can be an even bigger draw because it is the only chance many people have to go to a rally.”

Trump exudes confidence in how he will perform in the blue states he visits. He claimed Friday in Aurora that he is “very close” in the reliably Democratic state — even though there is no evidence to support that.

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

Trump, who has been promoting false and sensational claims about the takeover of Colorado by Venezuelan gang members, attacked the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, on Friday.

“This man doesn’t see what you see. “He doesn’t see people rushing into buildings with AK-47s, military weapons, sometimes better than our own military,” he said.

Trump said he would create a federal program to speed the deportation of undocumented gang members if he wins in November. He also called for the death penalty for “any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer.”

Colorado Senator 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 the state of Colorado,” Bennet said. “And so, from a political point of view, I think this was a complete waste of his time.”