Trump is playing to his base in red-state campaign swing. But he’s often been dismissive of those voters

As Republicans count on turnout in solidly conservative areas for the November midterms, President Donald Trump has been touring such places, and at a Tennessee rally he joked that he could say foolish things and his audience would still applaud. CNN notes that the remark echoes a long habit of portraying his supporters as unwaveringly loyal, and that former associates and advisers have called such talk a sign of disdain for his own voters.

The pattern stretches back to the 2016 campaign. In New Hampshire he claimed that even if he were the worst person alive, backers would stay. In Iowa he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and keep his voters. In Nevada he cited a poll showing 68% would never leave him. After winning there, he declared that he loved the "poorly educated." In Michigan, he asked Black voters what they had to lose, citing poverty, bad schools and joblessness.

In 2020 he suggested he would never have come to Erie, Pennsylvania, but for Covid. At a sweltering Las Vegas rally, he said he cared only about votes, and six attendees were hospitalized with heat illness.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CNN’s reporting. Read the full story at CNN →