President Trump sent liberal California activists into a tizzy on Tuesday, as he executed a lunch-dinner-breakfast-lunch fundraising blitz expected to scoop up $15 million from wealthy Republicans in the state in the span of just two days.
A firestorm among Hollywood elites erupted last month as soon as Trump’s Emmy-week visit to the Golden State was announced, with “Will and Grace” star Debra Messing suggesting that anyone attending the fundraising events should be named and shamed publicly. That prompted Trump to call Messing a failed actress dabbling in racism and McCarthyism.
The president’s undeterred push westward came a day after he headlined a fiery rally in New Mexico, long a reliably liberal state that the Trump campaign has hoped to turn red in 2020. Trump has been looking to find the next Wisconsin or Michigan — states that Democrats generally have won in presidential elections but that could surprise under certain conditions, as they did in 2016. Also on the Trump team’s shortlist in the new strategy: Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota.
At his Bay Area fundraiser, Trump told attendees he thinks California is “a beautiful state, but that the system was rigged — the elections were not done fairly — and that it made it very difficult” for him to win, RNC committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon says https://t.co/LZsLOWgtm6
— Casey Tolan (@caseytolan) September 17, 2019
California is decidedly not on that list. Nevertheless, Republican strategists said, the state could still be useful, even if not for its electoral votes. – READ MORE