The Critical Donald Trump Coachella Visit For Latino Support

This weekend, former President Donald Trump is heading to Coachella in Riverside County for a rally. While mocked by Democrats, including spokespeople for Vice President Kamala Harris, the rally is being seen more and more to push for critical support from Latinos.

From the beginning, the rally wasn’t to flip California. Polls have shown Trump 20 points behind Harris in the state, with only about 34% supporting him. What can be done is to beat the 34.3% of votes he got in 2020 against President Joe Biden and continue the bounce up in GOP candidate support from the 2016 low-point percentage of 31.62%. Officially, the Trump campaign said that they want to go after Harris in her home state and go after her record and highlight rising costs in the state, as well as to meet and greet many of Trump’s largest supporters and donors despite it not being a fundraising event.

But the secondary purposes of the stop are of even greater importance this November, Being next door to both Arizona and Nevada, the event is expected to bring in many supporters from those states and serve as a bump there. His visit is also expected to shore up support for nearby close House races, primarily the 41st Congressional district where incumbent Congressman Ken Calvert (R-CA) is currently only a few points ahead of Attorney Will Rollins (D). The visit will also connect Trump to Latino voters, a critical voting bloc in every swing state, the rally being a key way to connect with them and show others the amount of support he has from them in states like California.

And the latter reason has only grown in importance this week. As the L.A. Times pointed out on Thursday, Harris’ Latino support is far below where it was for Biden. In 2020, 75% of California Latino’s voted for Biden, with Trump only getting 23%. But with border policies being challenged, the Biden administration going soft on many border issues, and Harris’ past record on border issues coming into major conflict with her saying she will be more tough on it as President, Trump has made significant headway. The October Berkeley IGS poll found that only 54% of Latino voters will vote for Harris in California, with 35% supporting Trump – nearly matching where white voters are in the state with 56% for Harris and 37% for Trump.

California isn’t the only state either. Harris has also been drastically losing support of Latino voters in other states, including the critical swing states of Arizona and Nevada. All of the sudden, the Coachella rally has suddenly become a keystone October event for Trump. Latino voters have been worried, like most Californians, about inflation, rising costs, and the housing crisis. The Coachella event, in an area with a large number of Latinos, will be covering those issues and tying Harris with them.

“Like I said before, this is very much calculated by the Trump campaign,” explained voter outreach coordinator Luis Valdez to the Globe on Thursday. “The Harris campaign can laugh about this all they want, but they are bringing out those Latino voters, he can use the rally as a tool to show just how many are backing him, and he’ll bring out Latino support in neighboring states.

“And if he presses on Catholic values and stresses legal immigration, he can change a lot of minds. This means further turning around the Latino vote in California, especially close House seats. That means building up support in swing states with a large Latino population. And that means destroying one of the pillars of support that led to Biden winning in 2024.

“Trump needs to be careful what he says about immigration and the border for sure. But this can be very big. He’s going to go after Harris and her border record. And if he breaks out some Spanish, it would be very welcome. Even a few sentences. George W. Bush did that all the time to a great reception.

“It will be big”.

Trump’s event on Saturday will take place amidst triple digit temperatures in the Coachella Valley.