Even though rallies often take place in swing states where no one political party dominates the state, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is visiting California, a state with a supermajority of democrats for the past decade, this weekend. Specifically, the rally is at Coachella, a music festival venue, and will be around 100 degrees Fahrenheit during his rally. Despite all of this, why is Trump still holding a rally in California?
It turns out, Trump rallying at a non-swing state is nothing new. In the last election, Trump visited California, and although a landslide win by Joe Biden, because California is so populated, the “portion” of Trump supporters equated to more than 6 million votes (most votes received by a republican presidential candidate from California). His goal is not to win California and get the electoral votes, but get the considerably high amount of popular votes compared to other states with smaller populations. Moreover, Coachella is the only competitive congressional district that he won in the 2020 election. This district’s representative was GOP Rep. Ken Calvert who barely won. Trump hopes to be able to help out Calvert again with this weekend's rally (which will ultimately help him if he gets the presidential position).
Fundraising is another reason, with California producing one of the most fundraisers for both political parties. Seats that come with an opportunity to take photos with Trump were priced at $25,000 for two people, and $5,000 for a “VIP experience” seat.
Gaining support from the republicans within California, Trump takes advantage of the fact that California is still predominantly democratic by blaming all the current negative status of California to the Democrats. For example, California’s high housing, gas, and other inflations; he refers this as California Dream into a Nightmare. Trump is able to blame it all on the democrats and make himself appeal by claiming that all will be solved under his term.
On the other hand, from the community’s perspective there are some oppositions. Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez disagrees with Trump’s claim and said that “Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us don’t align with the values of our community.”
California is not the only democratic state he plans to visit. Trump plans to visit Chicago and New York later on. Although the claims Trump makes at the rallies are questionable, his rallies identify a clear sign of support from these democratic states.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/12/politics/trump-coachella-rally/index.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/11/trump-coachella-rally-00183392
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920478-trump-to-hold-rare-california-rally-on-saturday/
1 comment:
Perhaps like you mentioned, this rally in California serves more as a way to balance out Trump's finances by raising some money -- there are most likely hard-line Republicans in California that would do nearly anything to turn California into a red state. Perhaps Trump is just playing the long game here, as part of perhaps a longer game plan where Republicans slowly turn California from being solidly blue to kind of blue to a swing state (though this will take forever). Or perhaps this rally is not in the hopes of winning a few electoral votes as that seems super unlikely, but rather a way for the GOP to try to win some more seats in the House, a highly contested battleground every year where a few seats can mean a lot to either party.
Post a Comment