Former President Donald Trump will hold a pair of rallies on May 1, taking advantage of a full day off from his criminal trial in New York to campaign in the critical battleground states.
The events come a day after Judge Juan Merchan found President Trump in contempt for violating a gag order about the case, issuing $9,000 in fines and threatening jail time for repeated infractions.
President Trump will begin in Waukesha, Wisconsin, at 2 p.m. CDT, according to a campaign statement. He intends to “contrast the peace, prosperity, and security of his first term with Joe Biden’s failed presidency,” the campaign said.
The second event is scheduled for Freeland, Michigan, at 6 p.m. EDT.
Both states are crucial to President Trump’s reelection bid. He lost Wisconsin to President Joe Biden by less than 1 percentage point in 2020 and Michigan by 2.8 points. President Trump now leads in Wisconsin polling by 2.6 points and in Michigan by 1.2 points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
The former president is likely to comment on inflation, which has plagued the Biden administration.
In Michigan, a 12.4 percent increase in wages over four years was erased after adjusting for inflation, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 2023.
In Wisconsin, where inflation has dropped from 9 percent in 2022 to 3.4 percent in March 2024, 63 of state residents continued to name it as the top issue in a survey published by WisconSays/La Follette University on April 24.
President Trump is also likely to criticize the administration’s handling of the immigration crisis and to speak about the New York trial, in which he is accused of falsifying business records related to “hush money” payments to an adult film star prior to the 2016 election. President Trump has consistently denied the allegations.
The gag order forbids President Trump from speaking about two potential witnesses and several other individuals related to the case. The contempt finding involved seven social media posts by President Trump and two statements on his website.
Campaigning in New York Amid Trial
The trial, now in its third week, is expected to last six to eight weeks, according to a media advisory from the New York State Unified Court System. President Trump is required to attend daily court sessions, severely limiting his ability to campaign outside the city of New York.“This is a partisan Witch Hunt. The only reason this trial is happening is because President Trump is dominating in the polls,” the Trump campaign said in an April 21 statement, calling it “a full-frontal assault on American Democracy.”
The former president has made use of his time in New York to conduct a series of brief campaign stops that highlight his agenda.
President Trump visited a Harlem bodega where a man had been stabbed to death. “I love this city,” he said on April 17. “And it’s gotten so bad in the last three years ... and we’re going to straighten New York out.”
The stop appeared to be calculated to appeal to minority voters, who have steadily migrated away from associating themselves with the Democratic Party over the past eight years.
On April 25, President Trump visited a construction site before reporting to court. There, he shook hands with workers who are constructing what will become the 70-story headquarters of one of the country’s largest banking firms.
The move appeared to be calculated to bolster support among what President Biden has considered one of his core constituencies, union workers.
Flanked by some 100 people chanting “We want Trump,” the former president used the occasion to criticize his opponent’s economic policies.
“I’ve got a lot of support there,” President Trump quipped.
Border Crisis
President Joe Biden has avoided commenting directly on the criminal prosecutions against President Trump. However, at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh during the first week of President Trump’s trial, President Biden remarked that his predecessor is “a little busy right now,” an apparent joke about the former president being tied to the courtroom.President Trump is likely to use the rallies also to highlight the southern border crisis, for which he blames President Biden. “This is a Joe Biden invasion,” President Trump said during a press conference at the border on Feb. 29. “The whole country is being overrun by Biden migrant crime.”
“The Biden Border Crisis continues to rage out of control as Biden migrants commit the most heinous crimes across the country,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said after news broke of the arrest of a Haitian national in a case of sexual assault on an underage female with disabilities.
President Biden has insisted that he is doing everything possible to secure the border with the funding available.
The Trump campaign postponed a rally scheduled for April 20 in Wilmington, North Carolina. A rally is set for Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11.
Judge Merchan announced that trial proceedings will not take place on May 17 so President Trump can attend the high school graduation of his son, Barron.
