Trump's Mississippi visit is story of his campaign: focused on money, not votes

Although thousands of supporters will turn out for Donald Trump’s rally Wednesday in Mississippi, the real purpose for his visit to the state will quietly happen an hour earlier: a $1,000-per-person fundraiser at an undisclosed location.

Money is the only explanation for Trump’s continued swing through deep red states, according to operatives on both the left and the right.

Traditionally, a candidate with just over two months until an election would focus on battleground states, or states with large populations and value in the electoral college: Florida, Iowa, New York, the Rust Belt states and others. Florida boasts 29 electoral votes, for instance, while Mississippi has six.

But Trump’s arrival in Mississippi on the heels of a trip to Texas is a quintessential Trump move: splashy, expensive and defying conventional political wisdom.

“They’re running this campaign the way they want to run the campaign, for sure,” said Austin Barbour, a Republican operative and nephew of former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour. “I think it’s habit. The big rallies in supportive states worked well for them in the primary, but it hasn’t worked so well in the general election.”

Many of Trump’s critics have accused him of pandering to racists, less dog whistle than piper’s flute. Trump has never, for instance, endorsed David Duke, but the Klansman-turned-politician has endorsed him, and in the environment Trump has created – with its particular political pH levels – Duke has re-emerged on the southern political scene.

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Certainly at previous rallies, whether officially endorsed or not, confederate battle flags have appeared in great numbers. The stars and bars have shown up on supporters’ T-shirts, on hats sold by vendors outside in the parking lot, or waved during the rallies.

All of which is doubly problematic in Mississippi. It’s the only state in the country that reproduces the confederate flag on its official state flag, still waving over the capitol on High Street despite numerous protests. All politics in Mississippi unfolds in the shadow of the state’s fraught race relations; it’s a fragile and poverty-stricken place, in recovery at best.

Trump’s support among black voters has polled as low as 0%. The last time he visited Mississippi, a pastor stood on the statehouse steps and addressed a crowd of black protesters, calling Trump one of the “Dukes of Hazzard”, a reference to the television characters who sported a confederate battle flag on their muscle car.

Mississippi has a higher percentage of black residents than any other state, at almost 40%. Trump’s audience will be almost entirely white, though. The reason may be as obvious as Trump’s campaign slogan itself: “make America great again”. For black people in Mississippi, the golden era that sentiment harkens to was a time of strife, oppression and violence.

A better move for Trump, Barbour said, would be to meet with black small-business owners while he’s in Mississippi. “We have lots of great opportunities here,” Barbour said. That is, Trump’s support has nowhere to go but up, if he’s willing to reach out beyond his base.

But Barbour’s Democratic counterpart, Bobby Moak, chuckled at the thought. “No, no, no, there’s been no talk of that,” he said. Moak was the longtime chair of the House Democratic caucus until earlier this year. “The rally here is something of an afterthought.”

The true reason to visit Mississippi, Moak said, is funding. “Our governor told Trump he could raise a lot of money,” Moak said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Mississippi is a small state, Moak said, but the population only has one candidate to give its money to: Trump.

“I’m sure it’s at least seven figures,” Moak said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t bother.”

There’s nothing new about candidates dipping into friendly states to pick up campaign funds. This summer, Hillary Clinton has spent time in California and north-eastern states, raising money in places where she enjoys a comfortable lead.

But unlike Clinton, Trump supports his campaign with a self-described $10bn fortune, his campaign has been tumbling in polls for weeks, and he has reshuffled his staff including his campaign chair. More specifically, Clinton has used her blue-state visits to drum up money which she then spends in other states. But Trump is spending money as he goes: renting out the 10,000-seat Mississippi coliseum for the rally, for instance.

“I think he got some pushback from Republicans here who can’t afford the $1,000 dinner,” Moak said. “They said: ‘If he’s coming here, we want to see the Donald.’ So he’s putting on the rally.”

There are other costs. Trump’s jet alone burns through $10,000 an hour, adding up to nearly a half-million dollars just in July. All of which means that either Moak’s estimate may be well below the mark, or Trump is managing his campaign funds in a way Barbour, the Republican, called “unconventional”.

“I’d like to see him do the traditional, raise money in Texas then quickly turn around and use it at a rally in Colorado. Or raise money here in Mississippi then jump over to the Florida panhandle,” he said. “But they’re not interested in the way Reagan did things, or Romney did things.”