Donald Trump to speak at Coachella campaign rally Oct. 12

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will speak at a public rally in Coachella on Saturday Oct. 12, his campaign announced Monday, Oct. 7, in what would be the former president’s first campaign appearance in Riverside County.

Trump will deliver remarks at Calhoun Ranch at 5 p.m., a campaign news release states.

“Under Kamala Harris and her dangerous Democrat allies like Tim Walz, the notorious ‘California Dream’ has turned into a nightmare for everyday Americans,” the release states, blaming rising costs and housing prices on the vice president and Democrat nominee for president.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Dan Gottlieb blasted the visit, saying in a Monday, Oct. 7, email that Trump “tried to block disaster aid for our firefighters, jacked up Californians’ taxes to reward buddies in other states, and bragged about taking reproductive freedom away from women.”

He added that “Riverside County deserves a leader who cares more about his own constituents than a convicted fraudster.”

Joy Silver, chair of the Riverside County Democratic Party, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Free general admission tickets are available to those who register. Event doors open at noon.

Trump will be in California a few days after vice presidential nominee and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who made a campaign stop in Los Angeles on Monday, Oct. 7.

Trump also made a Southern California appearance last month, when he visited Rancho Palos Verdes for a fundraiser. At a news conference, he called California “a mess” and blasted Harris and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for their handling of crime, immigration and local landslides.

It’s not clear whether Trump will visit other parts of California besides Coachella. Randall Avila, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, said Trump is not expected to swing through Orange County on this trip.

It’s also not clear whether Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, will be at the rally. Calvert is facing a strong reelection challenge from Democrat Will Collins in California’s 41st Congressional District, which represents much of Riverside County, but not Coachella.

The rally marks the first time that Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House after losing his 2020 reelection bid, has held a rally in Riverside or San Bernardino counties. He visited the Coachella Valley for a political fundraiser in 2020.

While the region is famous for the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which takes place in nearby Indio, not Coachella.

A city of roughly 42,000 southeast of Palm Springs, Coachella is one of the bluest cities in the Inland Empire.

About 58% of Coachella’s voters are registered Democrats, compared to roughly 14% for Republicans. President Joe Biden handily won Coachella in 2020, beating Trump 78% to 20%.

Ninety-eight percent of Coachella residents are Latino and 41% are foreign born, census data shows.

With its farmworkers picking the nation’s produce, the “Coachella Valley is home to our state’s most vulnerable workforce that fuels our state’s economy,” Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center, a Perris-based nonprofit that helps immigrants, said via email.

Farmworkers, she said, “live in constant struggle” and struggle to afford food and adequate housing while “not knowing if they will get home safely after a long day at work since (the U.S. Border Patrol) has jurisdiction over (the valley),” Gallegos said.

She later added: “At the same time, our immigrant Latino community is more civically engaged than ever and is aware of their civic duties and is paying attention. Anyone running for office should have the best interest of all residents of our country.”

While polls show a rise in Latino support for the GOP, Trump, who has called for a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, has drawn outrage for his rhetoric describing migrants — especially those coming up from Mexico — as invaders who terrorize Americans.

Most recently, Trump, , who falsely claimed Haitian immigrants in Ohio eat pets, suggested undocumented immigrants with “bad genes” are responsible for U.S. murders — another example, critics say, of Trump’s racism and how he dehumanizes a population statistically shown to not commit crimes at an above-average rate.

As polls show a neck-and-neck race between Harris and Trump in swing states, Trump’s Coachella rally, which will be 29 days before the election, is in a state that’s widely expected to vote for Harris, a former California attorney general and Oakland native who represented the Golden State in the U.S. Senate.

A University of Southern California/Cal State Long Beach/Cal Poly Pomona poll conducted in September found Harris leading Trump by 22 percentage points for California’s 54 electoral votes.

While California is a blue state, candidates from both parties frequently travel there to raise money from deep-pocketed donors in Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

This year’s presidential election could be one of the closest in U.S. history. FiveThirtyEight’s average of national polls shows Harris leading Trump by 2.6%.

Staff Writer Kaitlyn Schallhorn contributed to this report.