President Trump will counter the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with a rally in Green Bay, Wis., his reelection campaign announced Tuesday.
Trump said earlier this month he would skip the annual dinner honoring the White House press corps on April 27 because it is “boring and so negative,” adding that he would stage a rally instead.
Trump followed a nearly identical playbook last year, when he counterprogrammed the dinner with a rally in Michigan.{mosads}
The campaign said in a statement that it selected Green Bay as the site of the rally so Trump could share “the successes of his administration with the people of Wisconsin” and tout how his revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement will help the state’s dairy farmers.
Trump’s trip to Wisconsin is one example of how he is ramping up his efforts to hold Rust Belt states that helped deliver his 2016 victory and could prove crucial to his reelection.
The president edged out Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by just under 23,000 votes in 2016, becoming the first Republican candidate to carry the Badger State since Ronald Reagan did so in 1984.
Clinton was criticized for failing to visit the state after she became the party’s nominee.
Democrats have telegraphed that winning back Wisconsin is a top priority in 2020; the state was once part of the Midwestern “blue wall” that Trump punctured in 2016 but previously helped win presidential elections for their party.
The party will stage its nominating convention next July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city.
Trump is sure to tout this month’s election of conservative Brian Hagedorn to the state’s Supreme Court as proof he can reconstruct his coalition for the 2020 race.