Donald Trump will hold a rally in Aurora on Friday, a campaign stop more geared toward the national conversation on immigration than an electoral boost in Colorado, where polls show the former president is deeply unpopular.
Trump’s presidential campaign announced the visit on Monday night. He will speak at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, which is near Denver International Airport, at 1 p.m.
The rally comes after Trump said last month he would visit Aurora as part of his exaggerated claims about the influence of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, in the city. The former president has falsely said the Venezuelan gang has taken over the “whole town.”
Trump said that if he’s reelected, his massive national deportation plan will begin in Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, where he has said without evidence that Haitian immigrants are eating other people’s pets.
Trump has used Aurora and Springfield to attack Democrats on immigration. The former president promised on Sept. 18 to visit Aurora and Springfield within two weeks, a deadline which has come and passed.
The immigration spotlight on Aurora has dimmed over the past two weeks. Trump’s visit is sure to reverse that.
While there have been a handful of members of Tren de Aragua arrested in Aurora, claims that they have taken control have either been exaggerated or totally debunked.
“Based on our initial investigative work, we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated,” Aurora police said in a statement.
Nevertheless, the Trump campaign, in a statement announcing the visit, called Aurora, which is just east of Denver, a “war zone.”
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican who lost his congressional reelection bid in 2018 in large part because of Trump’s unpopularity, has welcomed Trump’s visit as a way to set the record straight.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center is far from the parts of Aurora where TdA was rumored to be active. In fact, the resort is in a small pocket of the city that is surrounded by Denver on three sides.
“We’ve dealt with the situation from a law enforcement perspective,” Coffman, who served in Congress for five terms, told The Colorado Sun last month. “I think it will be an opportunity to change the narrative for the city.”
Although polling shows Trump in a close race against Vice President Kamala Harris nationally, Trump is widely expected to lose to Harris in Colorado. Recent polls have showed him trailing Harris in the Centennial State by as much as 15 percentage points.
In 2020, Trump lost in Colorado to Joe Biden by 13.5 percentage points.
Republicans have not won a statewide race in Colorado since 2016.
Trump hasn’t made a public appearance in Colorado since February 2020, when he held a rally in Colorado Springs with then-U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican.
He recently attended a private campaign fundraiser in Aspen, an event that was cohosted by Larry Mizel and his wife, Carol. Larry Mizel is a Republican megadonor and Israel booster who lives in Denver and is founder and executive chairman of MDC Holdings, a home construction company headquartered in Denver.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was scheduled to visit Colorado on Tuesday and appear at a private fundraiser hosted by Larry Mizel and Gardner.
