Trump campaigns in swing states
Ex-president starts in Michigan, Wisconsin
GRAND RAPIDS: Donald Trump aimed to jumpstart his campaign yesterday with back-to-back rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin, two crucial states in his bid to defeat President Joe Biden in November’s election.
The former Republican president has held just one of the big, packed rallies he loves since his rematch with Mr Biden was all but confirmed nearly three weeks ago, and he wants to end any speculation that he is slowing down.
Mr Trump was scheduled to start in the northern state of Michigan, in the Great Lakes region, where his campaign team said he would focus on “Biden’s border bloodbath” on the frontier with Mexico.
The expression is one Mr Trump regularly hurls at his rival’s border policies, with immigration always high on the list of US voter concerns.
It is also just one illustration of Mr Trump’s increasingly incendiary rhetoric, which has prompted fears over the potential for violence among his inflamed supporters.
He has accused migrants of “poisoning the blood” of the country, and claimed there would be a “bloodbath” — ostensibly in the US auto industry — if he is not elected.
Last year he echoed Nazi Germany in vowing to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
On Friday he shared on his social network an image of Mr Biden tied up, drawing fresh shock and criticism.
But the programme announced for yesterday suggested Mr Trump was planning to double down on his aggressive language about migrants in particular — even in a state that is some 3,000 kilometres from the Mexico border.
The rally was scheduled to be held in Grand Rapids, a town where he also held his last political rally of the 2016 campaign.
That time, he won both the state and the keys to the White House against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Mr Biden put the state back in the blue column in 2020, buoyed by unionised workers and a large black community that helped deliver a victory margin of less than three percentage points.
But this time the Democrat risks losing the support of a 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has denounced his support for Israel as the civilian death toll soars in the war with Hamas in Gaza.
Polls currently have Mr Trump in the lead, although the election is still likely to come down to the wire.
It is also predicted to do so in neighbouring Wisconsin, where Mr Trump was scheduled to begin his second rally just hours later.
Like Michigan, Mr Trump won the Midwestern state in 2016, only to lose it to Mr Biden in 2020.
With many states already firmly leaning one way or the other, the election may hinge on winning key swing states — such as Wisconsin and Michigan.
Mr Biden has been on a blitz through the swing states in recent weeks, visiting Wisconsin and Michigan as well as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.