Trump hopes he can visit Arizona, Ohio soon to address jampacked rallies and woo voters after pandemic
Amid the coronavirus pandemic that has left over a million affected in the US, President Donald Trump on Wednesday, April 29, revealed his plans to travel across the country in the next few weeks that could see the resumption of his big campaign rallies.
Trump, who is seeking re-election this year, has started trailing his presumptive Democratic opponent Joe Biden in various pre-poll surveys and with the polls now around six months away, has made it clear that he is desperate to go out.
Speaking at an event featuring business leaders at the White House, Trump told reporters he would like to go out. "This is the most beautiful house in the world, in my opinion, but I think there's just a great demand to get out," the president said in his familiar tone of sarcasm.
The president has remained confined to the White House since March 9 and reports suggest that he is getting restless now and has plans to make day trips outside the capital. He said he would go to Arizona next week while plans are also underway to go to Ohio.
Those shows, if they materialize, would see his campaign rallies resuming and that means gatherings of thousands at venues — something that would turn the pro-distancing voices off.
Trump's dilemma has become more serious with the pandemic spreading in an election year. The Republican leader has to, on one hand, contain the outbreak which has claimed more than 61,000 lives so far and, on the other, ensure the continued shutdown doesn't lead to irreparable economic damage.
More than 26 million people in the country have lost jobs in a few weeks and even though the administration has passed an economic relief package, nothing is actually enough in these circumstances.
Arizona, Ohio key for Trump's re-election success
Arizona and Ohio have been targeted since these two states are key for Trump's re-election in the November 3 election. Two weeks ago, a poll showed Biden leading Trump by nine points in Arizona, which is known to be a GOP stronghold (last time a Democratic candidate won in the state was in 1996).
The president said his visit to the Grand Canyon State would be ‘industry’ related, giving an indication that he would be something related to combating the pandemic.
In Ohio, Trump was facing a challenge from within. He won the state in 2016 after it went to the Democrats for two consecutive elections in 2008 and 2012 but the Buckeye State's GOP governor, Mike DeWine, has become more popular than Trump by responding to the pandemic with lockdown orders earlier than the president.
Vice President Mike Pence is already making trips to factories and distribution centers in various states like Wisconsin and Virginia and is also set to go to a GM plant in Indiana, which is making ventilators, on Friday, April 30. Trump's planned travels are also likely to be similar to those of Pence.
Trump knows it is too soon to hold rallies
Trump though has acknowledged that it was "too soon" to hold rallies but hoped that they would become a reality in the near future.
"We have a tremendous pent up demand," he said. Trump, who bagged the Republican presidential nomination without much resistance for the November poll, attended his last campaign rally in North Carolina’s Charlotte on March 2.
"We're going to start to move around and hopefully — in the not too distant future — we'll have some massive rallies and people will be sitting next to each other," the Republican commander-in-chief added. The populist leader in him said he wanted full venues of fans screaming to greet him.
"I can't imagine a rally where you have every fourth seat full. Every, every six seats are empty for everyone that you have sold that wouldn't look too good. No I look, I hope that we're going to be able to do some good old fashioned 25,000 person rallies, where everyone's going wild because they love our country. I expect that to happen," he said.
Trump also added caution that how things shape up to his liking depends on how situations prevail in the states. The White House, after a lot of arm-wrestling with the states, has left it to the individual governors to decide on the reopening of the states.
The president also reiterated an earlier assertion that the coronavirus will "go away". When CBS reporter Ben Tracy asked him the reason for thinking that the virus will be eliminated without a vaccine, Trump said: "It's gonna' go, it's gonna' leave, it's gonna' be gone. It's gonna' be eradicated. It might take longer, it might be in smaller sections. It won't be what we had. And we also learned a lot."