Donald Trump’s visit to Aurora on Friday for a massive rally will be the first major public event by a major-party presidential candidate in Colorado this year — where Trump’s visit was motivated more by the opportunity to amplify his rhetoric on immigrants than to seize the moment. Any possible possibility of Colorado winning.
His scheduled afternoon stop on the north end of Aurora, near the airport, comes three weeks after the former president and current Republican candidate pledged to visit a suburban city he falsely claimed had been overrun by Venezuelan gangs. His visit was met with praise from some Republican officials, disapproval from Democrats and attempts by city officials to refute his frequent exaggerations about gang problems that were most evident in a few apartment complexes in Aurora.
Trump is scheduled to speak at Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center at 1 p.m., and doors will open for the event at 9 a.m., according to the Trump campaign. Trump will then travel to Reno, Nevada, to participate in another rally scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Mountain time.
The campaign did not release further information about the event, and campaign staff did not respond to a message requesting information about the number of tickets distributed. But a front desk clerk at the Gaylord Hotel said Thursday that the event will be indoors, with a capacity of 10,000 people.
The campaign has not yet announced any additional speakers or attendees, though a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert said the congresswoman plans to attend, as does Rep. Gabby Evans, who is running for Congress in suburban north Denver. So does Jeff Crank, a Republican running for a congressional district in Colorado Springs. Their spokespeople said Evans and Karnak may speak at the rally.
Spokesmen for the Aurora and Denver police departments did not provide details about logistical planning for the event. An Aurora spokesman said the department may seek assistance from other agencies if necessary.
Trump’s visit comes amid the former president’s continued — and often inaccurate — focus on Aurora and what local officials described as the “limited” presence of a Venezuelan cartel; These concerns were primarily linked to a group of dilapidated residential buildings. It was part of Trump’s broader focus on immigration, where he often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The former president’s campaign referred to Aurora as a “war zone” when announcing the rally plans earlier this week, and Trump twice referred to the situation in Aurora during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month. Denver TV station Fox31 reported that the Trump campaign invited the woman who recorded a now-infamous video of armed men in the hallways of an Aurora apartment building to the rally.
In a statement this week, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman — a Republican whose loss for congressional re-election in 2018 prompted a dry “Too bad, Mike” response from Trump — said the visit “is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is largely safe.” . The city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs. My public offer to show him our community and meet with our police chief for a briefing still stands.
Kaufman said that “concerns about Venezuelan gang activity” were “largely exaggerated.”
Concerns about the demonization of immigrants
Residents of the apartments at the center of the firestorm planned to hold an event and news conference in response to Trump’s rally Friday afternoon, one of the organizers told the Denver Post. The Denver chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation also announced plans to hold a drum circle and “make some noise” outside Gaylord.
A group of unions and community groups — a coalition that includes the large state employees union — issued a statement Thursday condemning the “racist and divisive lies used by MAGA Republicans to try to distract us from the horrific living conditions” in the apartments.
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora in Congress, told Colorado Politics that Trump overstated the issues in the city and that elected leaders “are addressing our public safety issues and our housing issues, and we don’t need someone coming in.” “Telling lies and demonizing our immigrants and refugees.”
Aurora’s crime rate has followed a downward trend seen across the country. This comes despite, or as some say, partly because of, an influx of Venezuelans fleeing their country who have flocked to Colorado and other cities across the country.
Multiple studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. But Aurora is also an example of how Trump can use real but isolated episodes of immigrant violence to discredit entire populations. He uses these examples to paint a picture of a country in disarray due to what he regularly calls an “invasion” of immigrants.
“You see what they’re doing in Colorado? They’re taking power,” Trump, who often warns of “immigrant crimes,” said, speaking of Venezuelan gang members during a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. “They’re taking real estate. They became real estate developers from Venezuela. They have equipment that our army does not have.”
Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, pictured Aug. 10, 2023, near Denver International Airport in Aurora. (Photo by Hyung Chang/The Denver Post)
Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, noted that Aurora, a city of 400,000, has long struggled to shake its reputation as Colorado’s toughest big city. One-fifth of Aurora’s population was born in another country.
“This is a safer city than it was before,” Polis told The Associated Press in an interview. “Things are going really well” in Aurora, Polis added, “and I don’t want this weird counter-narrative there.”
Colorado polls for Harris
Trump’s rally is unlikely to shift the political winds in Colorado, a now reliable state that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won by five percentage points in 2016 and President Joe Biden won by more than 13 points four years ago. Recent polls give Harris a double-digit lead over Trump in the Centennial State.
The last major presidential candidate campaign rally in Colorado was four years ago, when Trump held an event in Colorado Springs. This time, major party candidates and their delegates visited the state to attend their election campaigns only to raise funds.
Harris visited Denver for a post-State of the Union event in March as vice president, several months before Biden dropped out of the race. After she became the nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz chaired a fundraiser in Denver in August.
Trump was in Colorado last August to attend a high-dollar fundraiser in Aspen. The Guardian newspaper obtained a recording of Trump’s statements at the event, in which he claimed that illegal immigrants come from the Middle East and Asia. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, was in Denver earlier this week for a private fundraiser at the Brown Palace hotel downtown.
Immigration is also a key component of many Colorado Republican platforms, although it is unclear whether all of these candidates will attend the Aurora rally.
But another prominent figure-turned-politician will be in Colorado on Friday: Stormy Daniels, the former porn star whose accusations of secret payments from Trump led to the former president’s felony conviction in May.
There will be two nights of shows at Denver Improv this weekend. The event, which was planned before Trump’s rally was announced, promises “laughter, real talk and an intimate peek behind the curtain of (Daniels’) life in the world of adult entertainment.”
Writer Nick Coltrane and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Originally Posted: October 10, 2024 at 2:19 p.m
