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/
3 comments:
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.
In my opinion, one of the major reasons why Trump likes to hold big rallies in blue strongholds is to make the Democrats look weak. The hope for Democrats is that the rest of the country views states like California, as having strong support for its democratic leaders and support for effective policies that all Californians get behind. This hopeful view can show middle ground or red states that blue policies are effective and practical in this country. Trump being able to go to places like New York City or California, puts this image on edge. Trump being able to amass tons of support for his policies, which often counter those of California democrats, sends a message that not everyone is happy under a democratic supermajority and that this supermajority holds many flaws, weakening the national position of democrats. Seeing mass turnouts of African Americans at Trump rallies in the Bronx this summer, for me, raised questions on why the Democratic party is failing so badly with voters whom it promises to support. I suspect that seeing turnouts for Trump in California will raise similar questions for others.
What I really think is going on here is that Trump is using these seemingly futile rallies as an almost psychological tactic to try and sway other voters in swing states. Similar to what Seth mentioned, seeing that there are still people in a state as democratic as California that support Trump may be a way he is trying to convince voters to vote for him. I really don't think this is a smart tactic, because while he may be raising money, there isn't much of a chance that he could completely turn one of these states. Additionally, if Trump is really doing this all to win a few million of individual votes to help him win the popular vote, there is no strategy in that. The popular vote doesn't matter, that's just not how the electoral college works, so campaigning to win votes of moderates in California or New York is not going to help Trump win.
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