During the final week leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5, former President Trump is making two brief detours from his campaign in the seven crucial battleground states that will likely determine whether the Republican nominee or Vice President Kamala Harris wins the 2024 election.

On Thursday, Halloween, the former president will make a campaign stop in New Mexico, and on Saturday he will visit Virginia. Both states were once key general election battlegrounds, which have turned blue over the past two decades.

In fact, you have to look back 20 years – to the re-election of President George W. Bush – to find the last Republican presidential candidate who could carry both states.

So why is Trump spending time in New Mexico and Virginia, with time being such a precious commodity for presidential campaigns and the clock ticking quickly toward Election Day?

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Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, October 27, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

In contrast to his large rallies on Sunday in New York City and two weeks ago in Southern California — deep blue states that the Trump campaign has no illusions about — the former president and his team see opportunity in Virginia and New Mexico.

“As President Trump has said, he will be a president for all Americans, including those in the traditionally blue states that Kamala Harris and the Democrats left behind. Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal policies have failed Americans across the country – from the Bronx to Virginia and New Mexico – and that’s why President Trump is bringing his America First message and vision for hardworking families straight to their doorsteps,” Anna argued Kelley, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement to Fox News.

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There haven’t been many polls in New Mexico, but most recent surveys show Harris with a single-digit lead over Trump, although one survey shows more competition for the state’s five electoral votes.

“Trump is wasting his time coming to our state as polls show New Mexicans will once again reject his MAGA extremism and divisive rhetoric,” Daniel Garcia, spokesman for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, claimed in a statement.

And referencing the former president’s Oct. 31 stop in Albuquerque, Garcia made a verbal attack on Trump, saying, “There will be a round orange mass in Albuquerque on Halloween, and we’re not talking about a pumpkin.”

Trump hasn’t set foot in New Mexico in five years.

Former President Trump speaks during a campaign event at Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, on June 28, 2024. (Parker Michels-Boyce/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It’s a different story in Virginia, where the former president held a large rally in the southeastern corner of the state in June.

Trump will hold a rally in Salem, Virginia, in the conservative southwestern corner of the commonwealth on Saturday.

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Polls in the state show the Democratic presidential candidate somewhere between a lower double-digit lead and a slightly lower single-digit lead over the former president.

“We have a very good chance of winning Virginia — it hasn’t been won by a (GOP) presidential candidate in decades,” Trump told Republicans in Virginia during a tele-rally in September.

It’s an argument that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is also making.

Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024. (Reuters/Jeenah Maan)

But there may be another factor contributing to Trump’s stop in Virginia.

Trump on Friday blasted a federal judge’s ruling that Virginia must restore more than 1,500 people to the state’s voter rolls, with the former president falsely claiming Harris was behind the decision and charging it amounted to “election interference.” .

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The state of Virginia on Sunday filed an emergency stay petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn the lower court’s ruling that halted the state’s efforts to remove presumptive noncitizens from the voter rolls.

Virginia-based veteran political scientist David Richards of the University of Lynchburg told Fox News that “based on all the polling I see, it is not clear that this rally will help Trump win Virginia.”

“But I think he has bigger ambitions coming to central Virginia. I think he wants to take advantage of the court decision to reinstate voters who didn’t meet citizenship requirements or didn’t check the right box and were picked up by a general sweep. of registered voters in Virginia,” Richards said. “This plays into his overall story about illegal immigrants trying to vote in the election. I think he’s looking for a national audience, not necessarily just a Virginia audience, by coming here to hold a rally.”

Republicans haven’t carried the swing state of New Hampshire in 24 years. And Trump lost the nation’s first presidential primary state in the general election four years ago, at the hands of President Biden.

While the most recent polls showed a single-digit lead for Harris, two new surveys suggested a closer race for the margin of error.

Although there are apparently no plans for Trump to visit the state in his final days, the New Hampshire campaign’s top adviser remains confident.

“The polls are tightening and we are feeling significant momentum for President Trump,” senior adviser Steve Stepanek told Fox News.

Stepanek emphasized “what those polls don’t show and what we’re working very hard on is a large group of Trump supporters who are not registered to vote.”

Referring to the state’s same-day voter registration, he said, “We are urging these people to come out on Election Day with phone calls, mail, digital and knocking on doors to register to vote and vote for President Trump to vote.”

But Democrats in the state remain confident that New Hampshire will remain blue in the presidential election, thanks to their much larger voting base.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on our Fox News Digital election hub.