Trump leans into fear tactics in bid to win Midwest states

MUSKEGON, Michigan (AP) — President Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “erase American history, purge American values and destroy the American way of life” in a late reelection pitch to voters in Michigan.

“The Democrat Party you once knew doesn’t exist,” Trump told voters in Muskegon, Michigan, ahead of a rally in Wisconsin — two states in the Upper Midwest that were instrumental to his 2016 victory but may now be slipping from his grasp.

As he tried to keep more voters from turning against him, Trump sought to paint Democrats as “anti-American radicals” on a “crusade against American history.” He told moderate voters they had a “a moral duty” to join the Republican Party.

Trump’s reelection pitch comes as he faces headwinds not only in national polling, which shows Democrat Joe Biden leading, but also in key battleground surveys.

No Republican presidential contender has lost the state since 1992, but polling shows Trump and Biden in a tight contest.

In the hours before his rallies on Saturday, Trump focused on settling a score with a member of his own party, Republican Sen

Referring to him as “Little Ben Sasse,” Trump tweeted that the senator was a “liability to the Republican Party, and an embarrassment to the Great State of Nebraska.”

Sasse, who is up for reelection this year in the strongly Republican state, went on to criticize the president’s handling of the coronavirus and said Trump’s family has treated the presidency “like a business opportunity.”