Former President Donald Trump has held a rally in deep-blue California, part of an unorthodox campaign move in the final stretch of the neck-and-neck United States presidential race.
The Saturday night event near the Coachella Valley — best known for its annual music festival — came just 22 days ahead of the November 5 vote.
The final stretch of the election is typically reserved for mad-dash visits to the most competitive battleground states, which include Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada this year.
That makes Trump’s stop in California — a Democratic stronghold all but assured to vote overwhelmingly for Vice President Kamala Harris — atypical. Born and raised in the state, Harris previously served as California’s attorney general and the district attorney of San Francisco and remains widely popular there.
In the last presidential election, in 2020, Trump lost in California to Democrat Joe Biden by nearly 30 percentage points.
Speaking at the rally, Trump said: “The radical left Democrats have destroyed this state, but we are going to save it, and we’re going to make it better than ever.”
“You definitely had somebody here that was horrible, Kamala,” he continued. “And now she wants to destroy our country.”
The former president then launched into a familiar stump speech that focused on misleading claims related to migrant crime in the US.
Trump called migration the number-one issue of the election, despite polls showing the economy looms largest for most voters.
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