Donald Trump gambles on last-minute trips to democracy…

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Donald Trump is traveling to New Mexico and Virginia in the final days of the campaign, making 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 will campaign in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday and Salem, Virginia, on Saturday.

Team Trump is projecting optimism based in part on early vote numbers and believes he can be competitive against Democrat Kamala Harris in both states — especially New Mexico if he sweeps the swing states of Nevada and Arizona. That hope comes even though neither New Mexico nor Virginia has been carried by a GOP candidate for the White House since George W. Bush in 2004.

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

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

Trump retains fervent pockets of support even in states that vote overwhelmingly against him, and can easily fill his rallies with enthusiastic supporters.

He has made other recent detours from the states most at stake, holding rallies at Madison Square Garden in New York and in Coachella, California — states that are even more heavily Democratic than New Mexico and Virginia. Those events satisfied Trump’s long-held claims that he could win both states, but were also intended to garner maximum media attention as his campaign seeks to reach voters who don’t follow political news closely.

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

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

“Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal policies have failed Americans across the country — from the Bronx to Virginia to New Mexico — which is why President Trump is bringing his America First message and vision for working families to their doorsteps,” said Anna . Kelly, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

Trump’s strategy involves 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 ended up deciding that election. Arizona is now a battleground state, but it wasn’t considered particularly competitive eight years ago, when it voted for Trump by a 4-percentage-point margin.

“I don’t think there’s any strategy,” said Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic political consultant who has worked on numerous presidential campaigns and now directs the Center for the Future of Politics at the University of Southern California. “I think he insisted on doing it. It doesn’t make sense.”

Stopping New Mexico puts Trump in a border state

The planned visit to Albuquerque brings Trump and his stance on immigration to a border state with the nation’s largest concentration of Latino voters, highlighting the campaign for Hispanic supporters.

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

At the same time, New Mexico’s federal and local governments are dealing with a increase in immigrant deaths along the US-Mexico border.

Trump’s visit has implications for a swing congressional district that stretches from Albuquerque to the Mexican border. It is now held by a Democrat as Republicans seek to retain their narrow majority in the House. Immigration was a major issue in the race.

Also on the ballot, Democratic Sen. 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 road campaign signs for Kennedy appeared in the capital city of Santa Fe in late October, about two months after Kennedy withdrew from the race and endorsed Trump.

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

Virginia was once a battlefield

While Virginia was considered a battleground as recently as 2012, it has trended Democratic over the past decade, particularly in Virginia’s populous northern suburbs.

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 ads in Virginia, the data show, though that pales in comparison to spending in battleground states.

“We have a real chance,” Trump said as he called one Richmond area rally on Saturday.

Trump, while in Virginia, is likely to talk about Wednesday’s The decision of the Supreme Court leaving in place a sweep of voter records that the state says is aimed at stopping non-U.S. citizens from voting.

The high court, because of the dissents of the three liberal justices, allowed an emergency appeal by the Republican administration of Virginia led by Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Speaking to Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday night, Youngkin said from what he’s seeing on the field, “Virginia is a lot more competitive than any of the pundits would have thought.”

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

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

Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Virginia Democratic Party, said Trump’s scheduled visit to Salem on Saturday will only widen Harris’ lead in the state.

“Kamala Harris will win Virginia in a landslide, as he knows, and any visit from this deranged lunatic will only widen 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.