Trump heads to Glendale for an interview with Tucker Carlson

GLENDALE, AZ (AP) — Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in Arizona late this evening with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, after making a brief stop in Las Vegas and campaigning in Albuquerque, New Mexico .

Trump’s trip to New Mexico and Virginia on the final day of the campaign takes a risky detour from the seven battleground states to spend time in places where Republican presidential candidates haven’t won in decades.

The former president was also scheduled to visit Salem, Virginia, on Saturday. Meanwhile, running mate JD Vance will be in the East Valley on Saturday. He will speak at a meeting in… Dillon precision in Scottsdale

The Trump team is exuding optimism, based in part on early voting numbers, and believes he can be competitive against Democrat Kamala Harris in both states — especially New Mexico, if he beats the swing states of Nevada and Arizona. That hope comes even though neither New Mexico nor Virginia have carried a Republican candidate to the White House since George W. Bush in 2004.

Especially in recent months, the battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – have had a constant flow of candidate visitsand residents have been bombarded with political advertisements on billboards, televisions and smartphones. In the past two weeks alone, presidential and vice presidential candidates have made 21 appearances in Pennsylvania, 17 in Michigan and 13 in North Carolina.

In the 43 other states, a candidate visit is an exciting novelty.

Even in states that vote overwhelmingly against him, Trump maintains fervent support, and he can easily fill his rallies with enthusiastic supporters.

He has recently made other detours from the states most in play, holding rallies Madison Square Garden in New York and inside Coachella, California – states that are even more solidly Democratic than New Mexico and Virginia. These events fulfilled Trump’s long-awaited claims that he can win both states, but were also aimed at earning maximum media attention as his campaign tries to reach voters who don’t closely follow political news.

Trump also appeared in staunchly Republican Montana, and both Trump and Harris campaigned on the same day last week in Texas, which Democrats last won in 1976.

Those trips served other purposes, such as highlighting important issues in a state or supporting candidates for House or Senate.

Trump said in Albuquerque that he could win the state as long as the election is fair, repeating falsehoods about past rigged elections.

“If we could bring God down from heaven, he could be the vote counter and we could win this,” Trump said. He added that he is visiting New Mexico because it is “good for my credentials” with Hispanic voters.

Trump’s strategy entails risks.

After losing to Trump in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton was criticized for going to Arizona late in the campaign instead of spending time in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania, states that ultimately decided that election. Arizona is a battleground now, but it wasn’t considered particularly competitive eight years ago, when it voted for Trump by a four-percentage-point margin.

“I don’t think there is a strategy,” said Bob Shrum, a Democratic political consultant who has worked on numerous presidential campaigns for years and now directs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California. “I think he insisted on doing it. There’s no point.”

The stop in New Mexico takes Trump to a border state

The planned visit to Albuquerque brings Trump and his immigration stance to a border state with the highest concentration of Latino voters in the country, underscoring the campaign’s appeal to Hispanic supporters.

About 44% of New Mexico’s voting population identifies as Hispanic. Many have centuries-old ties to Mexican and Spanish settlements, while the state has a smaller share of foreign-born residents than the national average.

At the same time, federal and local authorities in New Mexico are dealing with a increase in migrant deaths along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Trump’s visit affects a congressional district stretching from Albuquerque to the border with Mexico. It is now in the hands of a Democrat, while the Republicans try to hold on to their slim majority in the House of Representatives. Immigration has been a major problem in the race.

Also in the vote, Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich is seeking a third term against Republican Nella Domenici. She is the daughter of the late Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, who served six terms from 1973 to 2009 and was the last New Mexico Republican elected to the Senate.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot in New Mexico, and in late October Kennedy campaign signs began popping up on roadsides in the capital Santa Fe, about two months after Kennedy’s withdrawal from the race and Trump’s endorsement.

New Mexico voters rejected Trump twice in the election, and Democrats hold every statewide elected position, all three congressional seats and the majorities in the state House and Senate.

“He’s just taking us back to what America should be,” Leandra Dominguez, 45, of Albuquerque, said before Trump spoke. “It just fell apart. We just need someone to save us.”

Virginia was once a battlefield

Although Virginia was not considered a battleground state until 2012, it has trended Democratic over the past decade, especially in the densely populated suburbs of Northern Virginia.

Trump lost the state Clinton in 2016 And Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. This year, Democrats and their allies in the presidential race have spent nearly twice as much as Republicans on advertising in Virginia, the data shows, though it pales in comparison to spending in battleground states.

“We have a real chance,” Trump said as he made the call Rally in the Richmond area on Saturday.

While Trump is in Virginia, he will likely speak about Wednesday Supreme Court ruling abandoning a purge of voter registrations that the state says is intended to keep people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The Supreme Court has granted an emergency appeal by the Republican government of Virginia led by Governor Glenn Youngkin, due to the dissenting opinions of the three liberal justices.

Speaking to Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday night, Youngkin said based on what he saw on the ground, “Virginia is much more competitive than any pundit would have believed.”

He noted that two years after Biden won by 10 percentage points in 2020, he won as governor.

“Virginians are ready for strength in the White House,” he said.

Susan Swecker, chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said Trump’s planned visit to Salem on Saturday would only increase Harris’ lead in the state.

“Kamala Harris will win Virginia convincingly, as he knows, and any visit from this deranged lunatic will only increase the margin,” Swecker said.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.

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