Donald Trump Rally in Aurora, Colorado Today — Campaign Tracker

Former President Donald Trump will be traveling to Colorado for a rally in Aurora today, a city he has said is being "overrun" by Venezuelan gangs.

The Republican presidential candidate has frequently spoken about Aurora as an example of the ways he says the current administration's policies have failed, in a similar way to his unfounded claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

The Colorado city's mayor said he welcomed Trump's visit as "an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city."

Trump will also appear at a rally in Reno, Nevada later this evening.

At the weekend, the former president is going to Coachella, California, for a rally at Calhoun Ranch. California is not a swing state and is expected to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

With less than a month until Election Day and early voting already starting in most states, the stakes are high for both campaigns. Even if Trump sweeps the Sun Belt swing states—flipping Nevada, Arizona and Georgia—he will need to win one of the remaining battlegrounds further north—Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania—to pass the magic 270 Electoral College vote threshold to victory. Otherwise the former president will be stuck on a tantalizingly close 268. Harris meanwhile would win with exactly 270 Electoral College votes.

Why Is Trump Going to Colorado?

While Colorado is a safe blue state with ten Electoral College votes, Trump isn't visiting in order to swing it into his column.

During his first and only debate with Harris, Trump referred to the city of Aurora, alongside Springfield, as two areas of the U.S. that were suffering due to Democratic immigration policies.

His visit to Aurora is a chance to appeal to his base and focus on a core election issue. It's also close to California, where his next event is scheduled for the weekend, as well as the swing states of Arizona and Nevada, which Trump is set to visit next week.

Trump's Likely Talking Points

Trump has been focusing heavily on the economy and inflation for the last few events, making it the core of his recent rallies in North Carolina and Michigan, which saw him focus on energy jobs and U.S. manufacturing—both issues that are high priorities for voters.

In Georgia earlier last month, Trump unveiled a variation of his top slogan, pledging to "Make America Wealthy Again."

Despite polls tightening on the issue, Trump maintains a lead on the economy, which Republicans believe to be their strongest talking-point, along with immigration.

Additionally, Trump has been more focused on Harris' incumbency, moving away from the personal attacks that defined the earlier stages of the campaign.

Instead, the Republican nominee has repeatedly discussed Harris' chances to change polices already, saying on Truth Social: "Kamala goes to work every day in the White House—families are suffering NOW, so if she has a plan, she should stop grandstanding and do it!"

Donald Trump Upcoming Campaign Schedule

• October 11: Aurora, Colorado (rally)
  
• October 11: Reno, Nevada (rally)
• October 12: Coachella, California (rally)
  
• October 13: Prescott Valley, Arizona (rally)
• October 22: Savannah, Georgia (National Rifle Association event)
• October 23: Duluth, Georgia (rally)

JD Vance Upcoming Campaign Schedule

• October 11: Greensboro, North Carolina (rally)
• October 12: Johnstown, Pennsylvania (rally)

Donald Trump Campaign Spending

Similarly to the Harris campaign, Trump has spent the bulk of his campaign budget in the swing states. According to campaign monitoring firm AdImpact Politics, Trump's team has spent $132.1 million in Pennsylvania, widely considered the most important swing state, so far.

Trump is still set to spend $70.6 million on ad reservations in Pennsylvania, and $28.7 million in Georgia, in the nine weeks between Labor Day and Election Day, AdImpact Politics said in an update on August 30.

However, Trump is focusing less on other swing states, spending $6.6 million in Michigan, $9.9 million in Arizona, $3.5 million in Wisconsin, $2.8 million in North Carolina and $1.4 million in Nevada.

Trump, JD Vance Campaign Strategy

Trump's campaign has had to deal with several unforeseeable events, including an attempted assassination and the replacement of Biden as his opponent in the race.

His campaign looked strongest in the aftermath of the June debate with Biden, which gave Trump a strong boost in the polls and more ammunition for his team's top talking point: Biden's age.

He received another boost after surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania just days before the Republican National Convention.

Trump has continued campaigning in the swing states, with special focus on the midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which gave him the win in 2016. His choice of vice president, JD Vance, also ties into this strategy, as Vance represents Ohio, another midwestern state.

If Trump wins Georgia and Pennsylvania, plus every state he won in 2020, he would win the Electoral College, hence his increased spending in those specific swing states.

However, the sudden replacement of Biden with Harris meant Trump's campaign had to drastically switch message, something that it has struggled to do so. Following a poorly received debate performance and the Harris campaign's endorsement from Taylor Swift, Trump's campaign ruled out doing any more debates.

The election remains very close, with FiveThirtyEight's forecast model currently giving Trump a 45 percent chance of victory.

Donald Trump, JD Vance Biggest Interviews

National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ)

This was one of the most memorable interviews of the campaign, due to Trump's comments on Harris' race, and the claims that "she happened to turn Black".

Speaking with ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott, Trump's most significant comments came when he said: "She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage.

"I didn't know she was Black until a couple of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black."

The comments have since been brought up several times in other interviews, including during the ABC presidential debate.

"Childless Cat Ladies" Fox News Interview

JD Vance's 2021 interview on Fox News happened before he was officially selected as Trump's running mate, but the clip has made waves throughout the election cycle.

While appearing on Fox News, Vance said that the U.S. was run by "childless cat ladies", highlighting Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg as examples of "miserable" people.

"We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, so they want to make of the country miserable too."

In her endorsement of Kamala Harris, Taylor Swift referenced Vance's comments by signing her statement off as a "childless cat lady."

"We're not weird" Sean Hannity Town Hall

In this town hall run by veteran Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump responded to the "weird" attack line popularized by Harris VP pick Tim Walz for the first time.

"But he is a weird guy. He walks on the stage, there's something wrong with that guy, and he called me 'weird,'" Trump said. "And then the fake news media picked it up, that was the word of the day: 'Weird, weird, weird,' they're all going. But we're not weird guys. We're very solid people who want our country to be great again."

The line went viral after it was used by Walz at a rally in August, with many attributing his eventual pick as Harris' running mate to its success against Vance.

Laura Ingraham's Fox News Interview

Trump's October interview on The Ingraham Angle prior to his return to Butler, Pennsylvania saw the former president clash with the presenter over his comments on Hurricane Helene.

When Trump claimed that Harris was attending several fundraisers instead of responding to the crisis in the Southern states, most notably Georgia and North Carolina, Ingraham fact-checked him

"She shouldn't be at fundraisers. She's at fundraisers, and her teleprompter went off, and she didn't do well with the teleprompter off," Trump said. "It happens to me a lot. When the teleprompter goes off, you have to be able to do it. She didn't get through it. But she shouldn't be there anyway. She should be—I would say that North Carolina is bad, is so bad."

Ingraham responded: "She was there today for three hours, I believe," and asked Trump if he was politicizing the hurricane.

Upcoming Debates

The vice presidential nominees, Vance and Walz, debated each other on October 1. The debate was the last event scheduled that both campaigns agreed to. Currently, there are no upcoming debates for the rest of the campaign.

On September 21, Harris announced that she had agreed to a CNN debate on October 23. Trump said it was "too late" for another debate as voting had already started.