COACHELLA, Calif.—Former President Donald Trump is holding a rare Golden State rally—and some people are wondering why.
When Trump’s campaign announced Oct. 7, just five days ahead of the event, that a rally was set for Saturday, Oct. 12 at 5:00 p.m. in Coachella, it caused a stir online.
Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, posted a link to free tickets to the event at Coachella’s Calhoun Ranch with the notation, “This is happening!!!”
His post didn’t indicate why Trump chose that site in the Southern California desert town that was put on the map by its popular outdoor Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. And Miller didn’t respond to an Epoch Times request seeking information.
Some commenters on Miller’s X post wrote that it seemed bold for the Republican presidential nominee to campaign in the Democrat-dominant home state of his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Others said they thought Trump might be wasting his time rallying in California when he could instead remain focused on tossup states. Analysts view seven states as keys to unlocking an Electoral College victory in the Nov. 5 election. Those states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
On Friday, Oct. 11, Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Reno, Nevada, at 5:30 p.m.
The remaining 43 U.S. states have consistently voted for one of the major political parties, and experts believe those states are unlikely to swing the other way.
Nevertheless, Trump has campaigned in several Democrat-dominated states that appear unlikely to fall into his column, including New York and New Jersey.
Likewise, Trump’s Democratic opponents resoundingly beat him in California in the two past elections. The state is prized for its mother lode of 55 electoral votes—20 percent of the total 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
But Coachella is known for its predominantly Hispanic population—a voting bloc that has generally voted for Democrat candidates but has increasingly shifted toward Republicans, including Trump, recent polls say. Nearly 98 percent of Coachella’s roughly 44,000 residents are Hispanic, the U.S. Census says.
In a news release, the Trump campaign indicated that the former president would be contrasting his economic policies with Harris’s during his Coachella speech.
“Californians are suffocating under rising prices for everything from groceries to housing,” the release said, with links to data supporting that assertion.
The cost of goods and services went up 20 percent in California while President Joe Biden and Harris have been in office, a congressional report says.
Median sales prices of homes are up 23 percent, putting homeownership out of reach for many middle-class Californians, the release said.
In addition, at 5.3 percent, the state’s unemployment rate ranks among the nation’s worst, outpaced only by Nevada and the District of Columbia, federal figures show.
Harris has repeatedly stated that she will take steps to lower such costs. In August, shortly after Biden exited the race, she announced a plan aimed at reducing costs for consumers. The Trump campaign questions why Harris hasn’t already taken such action during her three-and-a-half-year vice presidency.
The Coachella rally appears to be Trump’s first in California since his successful presidential run eight years ago. In May and June 2016, according to the Trump Tracker app, he swung through five cities: Redding, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego, and Fresno.
However, Trump has made stops in California for other reasons during the 2024 campaign. He raked in millions of dollars in California fundraisers earlier this year and at the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim in September 2023.
Evelyn Nunez-Jones at a watch party in Palm Desert, Calif., on March 5, 2024. (Brad Jones/The Epoch Times)
Evelyn Nunez-Jones, a MAGA Republican organizer in Orange County, said she believes Trump is coming to California because “he loves Hispanics” and it’s Harris’s home state.
“We don’t want to bring the same policies that have ruined our state to the rest of the nation,” she told The Epoch Times in a text message. “We need to open our eyes of our entire nation to see the homelessness in our streets, young and old dying of fentanyl poisoning.”
Small businesses and farmers are leaving the state, Nunez-Jones said.
At a Sept. 13 press conference held at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., a coastal city in Los Angeles, Trump vowed to push back against sanctuary cities, which, he said, protect illegal immigrants who commit crimes from deportation.
“I’m the border president,” Trump said. “We went from a terrible border to a great border very quickly. I hope you call me ‘the border president.’ We’re going to do a job like never has been done before.”
Coachella is about a 135-mile drive from San Diego, a 120-mile drive from Jacumba, and area known for illegal immigrant crossings, and a 90-mile drive to Calexico, another border town.
Political insiders point out that even if Trump cannot win traditionally “blue” states such as California, it still might make sense to campaign there. They say he could be seeking to shore up votes for other Republicans, who he will need in Congress and in other positions, to support his agenda if he wins the presidency.
Trump also might be seeking to boost his popular vote tally because, if he prevails in the popular vote as well as the electoral vote, such a victory would be considered more resounding, insiders say.
He lost California to Biden in the 2020 election, earning 34 percent of the popular vote. In 2016, when he ran against former First Lady Hillary Clinton, he garnered about 32 percent of the popular vote in the state.
Jill McLaughlin contributed to this report.
