Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will leave swing states in the coming weeks and visit Ohio and Colorado to continue spreading debunked stories that defame immigrant communities in those states.
At a rally in New York on Wednesday evening, Trump said he would visit Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, cities he and his running mateSenator JD Vance of Ohio, were highlighted as victims of immigration.
Trump falsely claimed during the Presidential debate on September 10 that Haitian migrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pets. The debate moderators corrected the statement, which was also denied by officials including the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWineBut Trump continues to cite the city to support his tough stance on immigration.
Speaking to supporters in Uniondale, New York, on Wednesday, he falsely claimed that the migrants were in the city illegally and said 32,000 of them had arrived in just a few weeks.
Estimates of official sources According to government figures, between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitians have entered the country since 2020. Most are in the country legally, Many received ephemeral protection status which allows migrants from certain countries affected by violence and other circumstances to live in the United States.
Trump described Springfield and Aurora – where another rumor said Venezuelan gangs had occupied a residential building – as threatening places, without providing evidence, and said he might not be able to get out of them.
“They’ve got to get a lot tougher,” he said of Springfield city leaders. “I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora. You may never see me again, but that’s OK. I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. ‘What happened to Trump?’ ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.'”
Neither Ohio nor Colorado are among the seven battleground states that will decide the presidential election, but the stops would serve to highlight Trump’s focus on immigration as his central campaign issue.
Hispanic heritage
The Trump team presented immigration in a different delicate during a conference call with reporters to mark Hispanic Heritage Month on Thursday morning.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida whose parents emigrated from Cuba, said during a campaign rally that life was better for all Americans, including Hispanics, during Trump’s presidency than under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Rubio focused on economic factors and fear of crime.
“It affects everyone,” he said. “I think it has a special meaning for the Hispanic American community because you have to understand that everyone, whether it was your parents, grandparents or yourself, came here because they wanted a better life. They weren’t happy with their lives elsewhere. It was unsafe. You couldn’t get ahead. And so they came to the United States hoping to fulfill their dreams and hopes for themselves and their families.”
At a White House event marking Hispanic Heritage Month on Wednesday, Biden boasted about Hispanic employment numbers, saying his administration has seen the “lowest Hispanic unemployment rate ever.”
Biden criticized Republican rhetoric on immigration, celebrated the United States’ identity as a “nation of immigrants” and called on Hispanics to vote for Harris rather than Trump in November.
“This is by far the most consequential election ever because it matters,” he said. “The other team doesn’t see the world the way we do. They don’t have the same mindset as we do. They are the most narrow-minded people I’ve ever dealt with.”
White guys
A pro-Harris group representing a different demographic launched a $10 million advertising campaign in swing states on Thursday.
White Dudes for Harris has released a one-minute video ad, the first of an eight-figure campaign targeting white male voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to a press release from the group.
White men vote more Republican than other groups and have supported Trump by gigantic margins in his previous elections to the White House. His successful 2016 campaign won white men nationwide by a margin of 62% to 32%, according to the Pew Research CenterTrump won in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 with a total of 80,000 votes.
The ad begins with a complaint that Trump has damaged the reputation of white men. A male announcer then praises Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
“They’re actually talking to people like us – no lectures, no nonsense,” says the voiceover. “Just real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people we care about.”
Oprah and Adelson
The Harris campaign is planning a virtual event with eminent actress, producer and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey for Thursday evening.
Organizers expect the event to reach more than 200,000 people in real time, and tens of millions more to watch the shared clips afterward.
Trump is scheduled to appear at an event in Washington titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” alongside conservative major donor Miriam Adelson. Adelson is Jewish and a vocal supporter of U.S. support for Israel.
On Friday, Harris will campaign in Georgia and Wisconsin.
A Trump rally is planned for Saturday in North Carolina.
Polling snapshot
Polls released on Wednesday and Thursday showed a mixed picture of the race.
Harris and Trump were tied at 47% nationwide in a New York Times/Sienna College poll which surveyed likely voters from September 11 to 16. However, in the same poll, Harris was ahead in the key state of Pennsylvania, 50% to 46%.
A separate poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion found that the Keystone State stuck at 49%.
Marist found Harris led by 1 point in Wisconsin50% to 49%, and by 5 points in Michigan52% to 47%.
These states, along with Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, are likely to decide the election.
Nebraska pushes for the introduction of the “winner-take-all” principle
However, two more races could be hotly contested.
In Maine and Nebraska, two electoral votes are allocated to the winner of the popular vote at the state level, and the rest are allocated to the individual congressional districts.
Each state’s purple districts are likely to go to the candidate who loses the state overall, although some Republicans in Nebraska are pushing to adopt an all-or-nothing system.
Governor of Nebraska. Jim Pillen discussed the topic on Wednesday with the state’s senators and the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation advocated a “winner-take-all” approach in a letter on Wednesday posted to X.
It is almost certain that the electoral votes in the entire state of Nebraska will go to Trump, whose campaign team has been putting pressure on state authorities to change the current system.
Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.
