Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will hold a rally in Tampa, Florida this evening.
Trump’s event will take place at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater beginning at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. It can be viewed in the embedded YouTube player via Right Side Broadcasting.
Between Monday and Tuesday, Donald Trump is holding four rallies in Florida, with this Tampa event being second. He previously spoke to supporters in St. Augistine, and on Tuesday, he heads over to Sanford and then to Tallahassee. This makes sense, as Florida is definitely the most important state in the 2016 election. Donald Trump simply has no pathway to 270 electoral votes if he does not carry the state on November 8th.
But the problem for Trump is that his campaign likely hoped they wouldn’t have to work this hard to capture Florida, as this is time Trump could be spending trying to take back key states like Pennsylvania and Virginia. After all, even if Donald Trump wins Florida, North Carolina and Nevada – three swing states where Clinton currently leads in the polls – he would still fall short of 270 electoral votes. What he needs to do to push himself over is to flip a state like Pennsylvania or Virginia from blue to red. All the time Trump spends in Florida is time he’s not using to work towards that goal.
Hillary Clinton is also battling to win Florida, with her campaign hoping that securing the state will end Trump’s chances of taking the White House. On Monday, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine holds two back-to-back events in Miami and Palm Beach. And on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton herself will speak to supporters in Coconut Creek. Plus, President Barack Obama will speak in support of Clinton during a campaign rally in Orlando on October 28th.
On Monday, Trump said that he does not believe the polls that show him losing ground to Hillary Clinton, saying that he thinks the campaign is doing very well in Florida.