Trump to host campaign rally here
Milwaukee event is night of Democratic debate
President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally Jan. 14 in Milwaukee just two blocks from where the Democrats will hold their national convention in July, underscoring the importance Wisconsin holds for both sides in next year’s election.
The 7 p.m. event at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Panther Arena will be staged the same night as the toptier Democrats hold a prime-time debate in Des Moines, Iowa. It will focus on a campaign theme of “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” according to Trump’s campaign.
Trump narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016, becoming the first Republican to take the state since 1984. Critics argued Democrat Hillary Clinton’s decision not to come to the Badger State after the April 2016 primary contributed to her defeat, and both parties have made the state a priority in 2020.
Registration for Trump’s rally is available online at www.donaldjtrump.com. Doors open at 3 p.m.
Trump most recently was in Milwaukee in July as he sought to drum up support for the United States-Canada-Mexico trade deal. In April, he held a rally at the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon in the Fox Valley.
In 2018, Trump came to Wisconsin for the groundbreaking of a Foxconn Technology Group plant in Mount Pleasant in Racine County and for a Republican
rally in Mosinee in central Wisconsin.
This campaign season, Democrats have been coming to Wisconsin earlier than they usually do in part because they want to show voters they’re not taking the state for granted. The Democrats are sending a similar message by hosting their convention this summer at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum.
Trump’s rally in Milwaukee is the latest sign Trump doesn’t plan to concede a state that helped him secure the elec
toral votes he needed to win the presidency.
By holding his event at the same time as the Democratic debate, he guarantees that his rivals don’t get all of the day’s media attention. He deployed a similar tactic this month when he used a rally in Michigan to make his case against his opponents just as House Democrats held their votes to impeach him.
Wisconsin Republicans are excited to see Trump return to the state’s largest city, said Andrew Hitt, chairman of the state Republican Party.
“President Trump’s policies have helped Wisconsin grow even stronger during his term in office and the state will be fired up and ready to deliver our ten electoral votes to President Trump in 2020,” Hitt said in a statement.
Ben Wikler, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Trump had provided the state nothing more than broken promises.
“Whether through his trade war that has cost thousands of people their jobs and livelihoods, his refusal to help lower prescription drug costs, or the huge handouts he gave to the rich at the expense of the middle class, Trump has caused irreversible damage to countless Wisconsinites,” Wikler said in a statement.