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Trump, the first major 2024 candidate to visit Colorado for a rally, has
fanned flames over migrants

Donald Trump’s visit to Aurora on Friday for a sold-out rally will mark
the first big public event by a major-party presidential candidate in
Colorado this year — with Trump’s visit motivated more by the chance to
amplify his rhetoric about migrants than to seize on any likely prospect
of winning Colorado.

UPDATE: Aurora gears up for Donald Trump rally as traffic swells, lines
form outside venue
His planned afternoon stop on the northern edge of Aurora, near the
airport, comes three weeks after the former president and current
Republican nominee pledged to visit a suburban city he’s falsely claimed
has been overrun by Venezuelan gangs. His visit has been met with praise
from some Republican officials, pushback from Democrats and attempts by
city officials to rebut his repeated exaggerations of gang problems that
have been most apparent at a handful of Aurora apartment complexes.

Trump is scheduled to speak at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention
Center at 1 p.m. Doors open for the event at 9 a.m., according to the
Trump campaign. Trump will then travel to Reno, Nevada, for another rally scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. mountain time.

The campaign has not released more information about the event, and
campaign staff did not respond to a message seeking information on the
number of tickets distributed. But a front desk clerk for the Gaylord said Thursday that the event would be indoors, with a capacity of 10,000.

The campaign has not yet announced any additional speakers or attendees,
though a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert said the congresswoman
plans to attend, as will state Rep. Gabe Evans, who’s running for Congress
in the north Denver suburbs. So, too, will Jeff Crank, a Republican
running for a Colorado Springs-based congressional district. Evans and
Crank may speak at the rally, their spokespeople said.

Spokesmen for the Aurora and Denver police departments would not provide details about logistical planning for the event. The Aurora spokesman said
the department may seek help from other agencies, if needed.

Trump’s visit comes amid the former president’s continued — and often inaccurate — focus on Aurora and what local officials have described as
the “limited” presence of a Venezuelan gang; those concerns have primarily
been linked to a group of dilapidated apartment buildings. It’s been part
of Trump’s wider focus on immigration, with him often employing 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 referenced
the situation in Aurora during his debate against Vice President Kamala
Harris last month. Denver TV station Fox31 reported that the Trump
campaign has invited the woman who recorded a now-infamous video of armed
men in an Aurora apartment building’s hallways to attend the rally.

In a statement this week, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman — a Republican whose
2018 congressional reelection loss prompted a dry “too bad, Mike” response
from Trump — said the visit “is an opportunity to show him and the nation
that Aurora is a considerably safe 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.”

Coffman said the “concerns about Venezuelan gang activity” had been
“grossly exaggerated.”

Concerns about demonizing immigrants
Residents at the apartments at the center of the firestorm planned to hold
an event and press conference in response to Trump’s rally on Friday
afternoon, an organizer told The Denver Post. The Denver chapter of the
Party for Socialism and Liberation has also announced plans to hold a drum circle “and make some noise” outside of the Gaylord.

A group of unions and community groups — a coalition that includes the
large union for state employees — released a statement Thursday condemning
“the racist and divisive lies that MAGA Republicans are using in an
attempt to distract us from horrendous living conditions” at the
apartments.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora in Congress, told Colorado Politics that Trump had exaggerated the issues in the city and
that elected leaders “are addressing our public safety issues and our
housing issues, and we don’t need somebody coming and telling lies and demonizing our immigrants and our refugees.”

Aurora’s crime rate has followed a downward trend seen across the country. That’s despite — or, some argue, partly because of — the influx of
Venezuelans fleeing their country who have funneled into Colorado and
other cities nationwide.

Multiple studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. But Aurora also is an example of how Trump has been
able to use real but isolated episodes of migrant violence to tar an
entire population. He uses those examples to paint a picture of a country
in chaos due to what he regularly calls an immigrant “invasion.”

“Do you see what they’re doing in Colorado? They’re taking over,” Trump,
who often warns of “migrant crime,” said of Venezuelan gang members during
a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. “They’re taking over real estate. They become real estate developers from Venezuela. They have
equipment that our military doesn’t have.”

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, noted that Aurora, a city of 400,000 people,
has long fought to shake its reputation as Colorado’s rougher big city. One-fifth of Aurora’s residents were born in another country.

“This is a safer town than it’s been before,” Polis told the Associated
Press in an interview. “Things are going really great” in Aurora, Polis
added, “and I don’t want this bizarre counter-narrative out there.”

Colorado polling favors Harris
Trump’s rally is unlikely to shift the political winds in Colorado, a now- reliably blue state that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won by 5
percentage points in 2016 and President Joe Biden won by more than 13
points four years ago. Recent polling gives 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 had an event in Colorado Springs. This time, the major-party candidates and their surrogates have visited the state for
campaign stops only to raise money.

Harris visited Denver for a post-State of the Union event in March in her capacity as vice president, several months before Biden dropped out of the race. After she became the nominee, running mate Tim Walz, Minnesota’s governor, headlined a fundraiser in Denver in August.

Trump was in Colorado in August for a high-dollar fundraiser in Aspen. The Guardian obtained a recording of Trump’s remarks at the event, in which he claimed that undocumented immigrants were coming from the Middle East and
Asia. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, was in Denver earlier this
week for a private fundraiser at the Brown Palace hotel downtown.

Immigration is also a key plank of several Colorado Republicans’
platforms, though it’s unclear if all of those candidates will attend the Aurora rally.

But another notable celebrity-turned-political figure will be in Colorado
on Friday: Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star whose accusations of hush-money payments from Trump led to the former president’s felony
convictions in May.

She will hold two nights of shows at the Denver Improv this weekend. The
event, which was planned before Trump’s rally was announced, promises
“laughs, real-talk, and an intimate peek behind the curtain of (Daniels’)
life in the adult entertainment world.”

https://www.denverpost.com/2024/10/10/donald-trump-rally-aurora-colorado- gaylord-rockies-immigration-tickets/

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