(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold an outdoor rally in sweltering Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday, seeking to shore up support in a swing state he lost twice but which polls suggest is leaning his way in the Nov. 5 election.
It will be Trump’s first large-scale rally since a New York jury found him guilty on May 30 of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election, making him the first former president convicted of a crime.
Trump spoke on Thursday at a town hall event in Arizona, another battleground state, telling supporters there about his plans to curb illegal immigration and blaming issues at the southern border on his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden.
Immigration will be one focus of his Las Vegas speech, along with criticism of the post-pandemic surge in inflation during Biden’s term, according to a campaign statement.
Blistering heat is forecast for the event, with temperatures reaching 97 degrees Fahrenheit when Trump takes the stage at noon local time and climbing to 102 degrees by 3 p.m., according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
In a press release the Trump campaign encouraged attendees to dress for the heat and to stay hydrated, and said there would be water bottles and misting and cooling stations available, as well as medical staff on site in case of emergencies.
The campaign noted that the NWS’s excessive heat warning for Las Vegas — part of a heatwave scorching the U.S. Southwest — was due to expire on Saturday evening prior to the event.
The measures were aimed at avoiding a repeat of instances of heat exhaustion at Trump’s event in Arizona on Thursday, when several people who had lined up for hours in extreme heat had to be taken to the hospital.
Nevada is one of the six or seven swing states likely to determine the election. A Fox News survey conducted after the guilty verdict showed Trump ahead of Biden in Nevada by five percentage points, an advantage roughly in line with an average of polls over time compiled by poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight.
Rebecca Gill, a political science professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, said she was skeptical that polls were fully capturing where voters will be in a few months, given that many are not yet paying attention to the race.
Gill said she didn’t think Trump’s criminal conviction has fully sunk in with voters and could deter some moderate Republicans from backing him. In addition, a proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in the state constitution would, if it makes it onto the ballot, likely boost Democratic turnout.
“I think that (Nevada) is 100% still in play,” Gill said.
Sunday’s rally comes on the heels of a three-day fundraising push by Trump that included stops in San Francisco and Beverly Hills, where he raised millions of dollars from technology executives and other donors.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
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