Trump’s sold-out Aurora rally is a chance to prove it’s “not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” mayor says

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.

His planned afternoon stop on the northern edge of Aurora, near the airport, will come three weeks after the former president and current Republican nominee pledged to come to 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.