President Trump’s reelection campaign announced Tuesday he will hold a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., on Sept. 9 as he seeks to solidify support in a key swing state and support the Republican candidate just a day before a special House election.
The rally is the second in North Carolina since July. His last rally in the Tar Heel State was punctuated by “send her back” chants that erupted from the crowd in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came the country as a refugee from Somalia as a child and has emerged as a fierce critic of Trump in Congress.
The rally will also come the day before the special election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, in which Fayetteville partially falls. The president has endorsed Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop in the contest and said on Tuesday the candidate will appear onstage with him.
{mosads}Bishop will face off against Democrat Dan McCready in a special House election taking place after state officials determined that a vote last November was tainted by pervasive fraud.
The Republican candidate in November, Mark Harris, prevailed over McCready by just more than 900 votes, but the results were never certified by the state election board. Harris opted not to run again in the special election.
“Looking forward to being with Dan Bishop in two weeks, in North Carolina. His opponent believes in Open Borders and Sanctuary Cities, and won’t protect your Second Amendment!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
The president has steadily increased the frequency of his campaign events in recent months as the Democratic primary begins to heat up, holding rallies in Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, all swing states in the general election.
The North Carolina rally, which will be held at the Fayetteville Regional Airport, is the second rally Trump has held in the state since appearing in Greenville in July.
The Greenville rally took place in the midst of Trump’s controversial attacks against Omar and three other freshman congresswomen, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
The president won North Carolina, an increasingly Republican-leaning swing state, over Hillary Clinton by about 3.5 points in 2016.
Besides being a battleground in the presidential race, North Carolina is also home to two of the nation’s most anticipated statewide contests. Sen. Thom Tillis (R) is running for a second term in the Senate and has already attracted a primary challenger who says the one-term incumbent is insufficiently supportive of the White House. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is also running for a second term.