Donald Trump is traveling to New Mexico and Virginia in the campaign's final days, taking a risky detour from the seven battleground states to spend time in places where Republican presidential candidates have not won in decades.
The former president will campaign in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday and Salem, Virginia, on Saturday.
The Trump team is projecting optimism based in part on early voting numbers and thinks he can be competitive against Democrat Kamala Harris in both states - New Mexico in particular, if he sweeps swing states Nevada and Arizona. That hope comes even though neither New Mexico nor Virginia has been carried by a GOP nominee for the White House since George W. Bush in 2004.
Over the past few months in particular, the battleground states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - have seen a constant stream of candidate visits , and residents have been bombarded with political ads on billboards, televisions and smartphones. In the past two weeks alone, presidential and vice presidential candidates have made 21 appearances in Pennsylvania, 17 in Michigan and 13 in North Carolina.
In the 43 other states, a candidate visit is an exciting novelty.
