TRUMP SEEKS BOOST AT CAMPAIGN STOPS IN MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN

Biden campaign warns supporters of complacency

President Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “destroy the American way of life” in a late re-election pitch to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin — two Midwestern states that were instrumental to his 2016 victory but may now be slipping from his grasp.

In back-to-back rallies, Trump accused the left of wanting to “erase American history” and “purge American values.” He claimed, with no basis, that Democratic rival Joe Biden would put communities at risk.

Trump offered the dark message as he faces headwinds not only in national polling, which shows Biden leading, but also in key battleground surveys. His comments come after his campaign, with far less cash than Biden’s, largely retreated from TV advertising in the Midwest, shifting much of its money to Sun Belt states such as Florida,

North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia, as well as Pennsylvania.

As he tries to energize his base and keep on-the-fence voters from turning against him, Trump sought to paint Democrats as “anti-american radicals” and said moderates had “a moral duty” to join the Republican Party.

“The Democrat Party you once knew doesn’t exist,” he said.

It was the same on issue after issue, as he claimed without evidence that Biden’s election would spur “the single biggest depression in the history of our country” and “turn Michigan into a refugee camp.”

And while he repeatedly predicted victory, Trump seemed to grapple throughout the day with the prospect that he could indeed lose in November.

In Michigan, he quipped that, in January, he “better damn well be president.” In Wisconsin, he wondered how he would process a loss.

“Can you imagine if I lose? I will have lost to the worst candidate in the history of American politics,” he said. “What do I do?”

Trump has continued to hold rallies despite the threat of the coronavirus, which hospitalized him for several days earlier this month.

Trump continued to call on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to roll back restrictions that remain in place to try to halt the spread of the virus, prompting the crowd to break into a “Lock her up!” chant. Whitmer, a Democrat, was the focus of a kidnapping plot by anti-government extremists who were angered by lockdown measures.

Biden, meanwhile, had no public events planned for Saturday. But in a memo to supporters, campaign manager Jen O’malley Dillon warned about becoming complacent.

“The reality is that this race is far closer than some of the punditry we’re seeing on Twitter and on TV would suggest,” she wrote in the memo. “If we learned anything from 2016, it’s that we cannot underestimate Donald Trump or his ability to claw his way back into contention in the final days of a campaign, through whatever smears or underhanded tactics he has at his disposal.”

Trump has an aggressive campaign schedule in the coming days, with rallies planned today in Nevada, Monday in Arizona and Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Biden, meanwhile, plans to be in North Carolina today.