Trump mounts Rust Belt defense

President Trump is mounting a defense of Rust Belt states that delivered his 2016 victory and will serve as the key to his reelection bid next year.

The president will travel to Michigan next Thursday to stage his first campaign rally since a number of top Democratic contenders jumped into the presidential race, part of what is expected to be an effort to visit battleground states in the months before the general election campaign begins.

Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by just over 10,000 votes in Michigan, becoming the first Republican to win it since 1988 and puncturing the so-called “blue wall” of states that voted for Democratic nominees in six straight elections, along with victories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

But Michigan, like some other key states in the upper Midwest, trended towards Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections — a sign Trump’s path to another four years in the White House may be even narrower in 2020.

“There’s no question they are in a better position than they were in 2016,” said Brian Reisinger, a Wisconsin-based Republican operative, said of the Democrats. “It’s a sign that the Republican Party needs to be hitting on all cylinders.”