At last month’s presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that violent migrant gangs were “taking over” Aurora, Colorado, amplifying and exaggerating a disputed rumor that his supporters spread online in the days leading up to his national showdown with Kamala Harris.
Now the former president is set to hold a rally in Aurora, putting this mid-sized Mountain West city in the spotlight once again, along with the topic that Trump hopes will decide this race: immigration.
Trump practically bet his presidential campaign on convincing Americans that closing the border and expelling those who crossed it illegally are the country’s most urgent priorities. It’s a speech he delivered with increasingly dark and offensive rhetoric that leans into stereotypes of foreigners from poorer countries.
He claimed — despite repeated objections from state and local leaders, including his own party — that Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the pets” of local residents. To residents of a small Wisconsin town, he warned about what people around the world were “doing to the fabric, to the guts of our country.” This week, Trump adopted nativist arguments about some immigrants having “bad genes” that lead them to commit crimes.
It is a final argument, however, that carries considerable risk.
A steady stream of polls throughout the year and leading into the final weeks of the presidential race have repeatedly stated that the economy is the issue of greatest concern to the largest number of voters.
In a recent survey from CNN conducted by SSRS, more than 4 in 10 likely voters said the economy was the most important issue when choosing a candidate to lead the country. Only 12% said immigration came first for them.
Against this reality, Trump’s own campaign appears to have altered its approach to persuading the electorate in key battleground states, moving away from its candidate’s favored message. In August, the Trump campaign spent about $15.5 million on television ads focused on immigration. For the next month, however, such immigration announcements were almost nonexistent on the airwaves.
Meanwhile, the campaign shifted even more ad dollars to messaging about the economy, accounting for about 77% of its broadcast advertising spending in September.
In the face of this polling, though, Trump is banking on his gut, telling a Wisconsin crowd on Sunday, “I really don’t agree” that the economy will decide the election.
“I know they do all these polls, and the polls say it’s the economy, and the polls say very strongly it’s inflation, and I can understand that a little bit,” Trump said. “To me, it’s the horrible people we are allowing into our country that are destroying our country. And it’s the hardest problem to solve too.”
On comfortable ground
Illegal immigration is certainly comfortable ground for Trump. He launched his first bid for the White House in 2015, protesting against Mexican “drugs”, “crime” and “rapists” entering the country. He then centered his campaign on the promise to “build the wall” on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, something he failed to deliver on as president.
Still, the 450 miles of new and replacement walls his administration has built along the U.S.-Mexico divide serve as a physical reminder — still unfinished — of his long-standing fixation on preventing foreigners from entering the country illegally.
Trump regularly laments that, as the 2020 incumbent, he was no longer able to garner support around the issue he believed first won him the White House. In his own recount — which he often shares with supporters at rallies — “I wanted to talk about the border. My people said, ‘Sir, no one wants to talk about the border anymore.’”
That is no longer the case as Trump seeks the Oval Office once again. The former president resurrected many of his promises from eight years ago, including a promise to finish the wall and another to begin the largest mass deportation in American history, deputizing local and state officials to remove millions of undocumented people across the country. .
It’s a question he raises in most public appearances — even at events that are supposed to center on other topics. Speeches billed as remarks on the economy, crime or inflation often begin and end with extended speeches about his favorite topic, sometimes overshadowing the message he was there to deliver.
For example, during a visit to Savannah, Georgia, which his campaign billed as “comments on the U.S. tax code and industry,” Trump said the word “frontier” 29 times, surpassing mentions of “manufacturing.”
In Tucson, Arizona, Trump stood in front of a sign that said “Make Housing Affordable Again” but spent more time warning against migrants “taking Hispanic jobs, taking African-American jobs, taking people who have been here a long time.” The first reference to “housing” came 30 minutes into his speech.
Trump has at times publicly criticized his aides for trying to place such barriers on his comments.
“We are doing this as an intellectual discourse. We are all intellectuals today,” Trump said mockingly in August in Asheville, North Carolina, where he was scheduled to speak about the economy. “They say it’s the most important issue. I think the crime is there. I think the border occupies that place, personally.”
Trump’s campaign highlighted that he has also held events focused on immigration, including a recent visit to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, that featured small-town Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by violent acts committed by undocumented individuals.
He also argued that immigration remains a top issue for many voters. A recent Gallup poll found that 72% of Americans said it was an “extremely” or “very” important topic — the highest point in the organization’s poll going back two decades. However, much of this is driven by Republicans, 63% of whom said the issue was “extremely” important to their choice in November.
The poll also showed that independents were split between Trump and Harris on who would best handle the issue.
Harris has recently been trying to reduce Trump’s popular strength on the issue. In late September, she made her first visit to the US border as a presidential candidate. At a public meeting Thursday hosted by Univision, she accused Trump of failing on a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, saying he wanted to “compete on an issue.”
“Donald Trump found out about this bill, realized it would be the solution, and told them not to put it on the floor for a vote because he would rather run by exploiting a problem rather than fixing a problem,” Harris said. “True leadership is about solving problems on behalf of the people.”
‘A bloody story’
There should be no mistake about Trump’s appearance in Aurora this Friday, which his campaign announced in a press release saying, “Kamala’s border bloodbath has made every state a border state.”
How Aurora became a flashpoint in the race is illustrative of the speed with which online right-wing fixations enter the mainstream. Trump supporters seized footage from an apartment complex in the city that captured gun-wielding men walking through hallways, in one case kicking in a door, followed by several women and young children.
The images quickly spread across social media, with Trump supporters claiming they depicted Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex. The building’s owner appeared to verify that description, but the city said poor housing conditions maintained by the owner were the problem, not the migrants. Meanwhile, local police found some gang activity linked to a Venezuelan group, but rejected theories that the gang took control of any buildings in the city.
This did not stop Trump, however, from taking advantage of the episode and increasing falsehoods claiming that Venezuelan gangs were taking over areas of Colorado. He then foreshadowed violent intervention if elected.
“You know, getting them out of there is going to be a bloody story,” he told supporters at a rally in Wisconsin last month.
After Trump mentioned Aurora at the debate, the city’s mayor, Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, said in a statement that the “exaggerated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true.”
Trump had planned a similar visit to Springfield, Ohio — another city besieged by right-wing conspiracy theories about its migrant population — but backed off after local officials warned of the harm it would do to the community.
Coffman, however, told a local Colorado news channel that he welcomed Trump’s visit.
“If he comes here, I see it as an opportunity to show him the city,” he said, “and break the narrative that this city is out of control when it comes to Venezuelan gangs.”
Understand what changed with the debate between Trump and Harris
This content was originally published in Trump defies research and prioritizes speeches about immigration on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
