Trump leans into fear tactics in bid to winMidwest states
MUSKEGON » President Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “erase American history, purge American values and destroy the American way of life” in a late reelection pitch to voters in Michigan.
“The Democrat party you once knew doesn’t exist,” Trump told voters in Muskegon, Michigan, ahead of a rally in Wisconsin — two states in the Upper Midwest that were instrumental to his 2016 victory but may now be slipping from his grasp.
As he tried to keep more voters from turning against him, Trump sought to paint Democrats as “anti-American radicals” on a “crusade against American history.” He told moderate voters they had a “a moral duty” to join the Republican Party.
Thepitchcomes asTrump faces headwinds not only in national polling, which shows Democrat Joe Biden leading, but also in key battleground surveys. And it comes after the campaign largely retreated from TV advertising in the Midwest, shifting muchof itsmoney toSunBelt states such as Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia, as well as Pennsylvania.
The president continues to be dogged by his handling of the coronavirus, which hospitalized him for several days earlier this month.
Wisconsin broke the record for new positive coronavirus cases on Friday — the third time that’s happened in a week. The state also hit record highs for daily deaths and hospitalizations this past week.
But there was little evidence of concern among the crowd at Trump’s airport rally, where thousands of supporters stood closely together in the cold. The vast majority eschewed masks.
Biden 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, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “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, throughwhatever smears or underhanded tactics he has at his disposal.”
Trump iskeepingupanaggressive campaign schedule despite his own recent bout with the virus. He’s hold rallies Sunday in Nevada and Monday in Arizona before returning Tuesday to Pennsylvania.
The difficulty of securing a second term was apparent Friday when Trump campaigned in Georgia. No Republican presidential contender has lost the state since 1992, but polling shows Trump and Biden in a tight contest. Trump also has had tocourt voters inIowa, which he carried by almost 10 percentage points four years ago.
The latest campaign fundraising figures from the Trump team suggest he’s likely the first incumbent president in themodern era to face a financial disadvantage. After building a massive cash edge, his campaign spent lavishly, while Biden kept expenses low and benefited from an outpouring of donations that sawhimraise nearly $1 billion over the past three months.