Donald Trump is holding a rally in California, a state he will almost certainly lose

COACHELLA, Calif. (AP) – With the presidency on the line in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spent Saturday evening in solidly liberal California trying to link Vice President Kamala Harris to what he called her home state’s failures.

Trump is almost certain to lose California, and that won’t change after his Saturday stop at Coachella, a desert city east of Los Angeles best known for the annual music festival that bears its name. Still, Trump used his visit to make inroads into the nation’s most populous state, alluding to its recent struggles with homelessness, water shortages and lack of affordability. Harris, the Democratic nominee, previously served as the state’s junior senator and attorney general.

“We will not let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” Trump said, calling the state a “paradise lost.”

The former president lost California in a landslide in 2020. He received more than 6 million votes, more than any previous GOP presidential candidate, and his margin exceeded 70% in some rural counties that typically favor conservatives in voting.

That’s a huge group of potential volunteers to work state races and participate in phone banks to the most competitive states. Trump has attracted media attention in the Los Angeles market, the nation’s second-largest.

Trump visited Coachella between stops in Nevada, a Las Vegas roundtable for Latinos on Saturday – where he praised Latinos who have “such energy” – and Arizona at a rally in Prescott Valley on Sunday. In 2020, he narrowly lost those two swing states to Democrat Joe Biden.

Attendees, who waited in scorching temperatures of up to 38 degrees Celsius, said they didn’t expect Trump to win their state but were excited to see him.

“It’s like a convention of like-minded people,” said Tom Gibbons of Palm Desert, who has supported Trump since 2016 but wasn’t able to meet him in person until Saturday while waiting in line. “Everyone understands the heartbeat of America and the plight of the working man… It’s reassuring.”

Going to California gives Trump “an opportunity to attract and capitalize on a large population of Trump supporters,” said Tim Lineberger, who was Trump’s campaign communications director in Michigan in 2016 and also worked in the former president’s administration. “He comes here and activates it.”

Lineberger recalled that in 2016, Californians called Michigan voters on Trump’s behalf and said the campaign’s decision to move into safe Democratic territory was an “aggressive and offensive play” at that point.

California is also a source of campaign money for both parties, and Trump will be a fundraiser. Photos with the former president at Coachella are valued at $25,000 and include special seating for two. The “VIP experience” was valued at $5,000.

On Saturday evening, Trump, speaking for 80 minutes, went through the standard list of Republican complaints about the Democrat-dominated state – the large number of illegal immigrants in the US, the homeless population and a thicket of regulations – and engaged in a battle over water rights that threatened the Delta’s stench that pitted environmentalists against farmers. .

The former president was particularly harsh on illegal immigration, warning at one point: “Your children are in danger. You can’t go to school with these people, they are from another planet.”

He continued his long-running spat with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom Trump called “the new scum.” Trump again threatened Newsom over the water rights battle, saying that if he doesn’t act in favor of farmers, “we’re not going to give you any of the fire money that we keep sending you for all the wildfires that you have.”

Republicans had previously listed a number of potential reasons for Trump’s visit.

With congressional races likely to determine which party takes control of the House, the Coachella rally “is a get-out-the-vote event that motivates and energizes Republicans in California when they’re not as close to what’s going on.” in the national campaign,” said Republican consultant Tim Rosales.

Jim Brulte, former chairman of the California Republican Party, said he thought Trump was pursuing something that had eluded him in previous campaigns: winning more total votes than his Democratic opponent.

“I believe Donald Trump is coming to California because he wants to win not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote. “California has more registered voters than residents in 46 of the other 49 states,” Brulte said.

Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles is located on the Pacific Coast, south of the city. But Trump has long had a contentious relationship with California, where no Republican has held the state since 1988 and Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by about 2-to-1.

During his time in office, California has been rife with the so-called Trump resistance, and Trump often portrays California as representative of everything he sees as wrong with America. As president, he called the homelessness crises in Los Angeles and San Francisco shameful and threatened to intercede.

On Wednesday, Newsom predicted that Trump would denigrate his state at a rally, ignoring its strengths as the world’s fifth-largest economy. The governor said that for the first time in a decade, California has more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.

“You know, that’s not what Trump will say,” he predicted.

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Blood delivered from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Las Vegas and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

Michael R. Blood and Meg Kinnard, Associated Press