Republican voters in the Miami area will have their pick of two high-profile political events on Nov. 8.
As other GOP presidential hopefuls take the stage that night for the party’s third primary debate in Miami, a nearby rally for former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate, will already be underway.
The rally, scheduled for 7 p.m. ET, will be held at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah—just 10 miles from the debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.
The debate is set to air at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
Since announcing his candidacy last November, President Trump has held a steady lead in the Republican primary race. Yet despite qualifying for all three debates, he has yet to attend one.
“He said he’s not going to attend the debates, plural. And that’s his position—until it’s not,” senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita told reporters on Sept. 27 after the second debate.
The debates, he added, had started to look more like a contest for “who’s going to be the designated survivor.”
While other qualifying candidates gathered that night at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, President Trump delivered a speech to striking autoworkers at a rally just outside Detroit.
The 45th president has repeatedly said that he sees no reason to participate in the debates, given his substantial edge over the rest of the Republican field.
The latest move, however, is the first he has made that may not only have an effect on the ratings for a debate but also its attendance level.
In 2020, President Trump won the state of Florida by more than 3 points. And despite the popularity of fellow GOP contender Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the state, the former president is still the preferred candidate of Florida Republicans by more than 10 points.
Legal Battles
Another factor that does not seem to have diminished the former president’s standing with the voters is the fact that he is the target of both criminal and civil litigation.Earlier this week, he returned to court in New York, where he is fending off a civil fraud lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Ms. James filed the lawsuit against President Trump, the Trump Organization, and his two adult sons—Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.—alleging that they had fraudulently inflated and deflated the values of their properties and assets.
Before the trial began, Judge Arthur Engoron had already ruled that President Trump inflated the value of his Mar-a-Lago estate. That ruling, however, has been criticized by real estate professionals who say the judge erred in relying on a tax assessor’s appraisal of the property.
“Appraisal values and market values are just not the same thing. It’s a well-known fact,” Eli Beracha, chair of the Florida International University School of Real Estate, told CNN on Oct. 3. “That’s especially true for properties that are unique. And it’s very easy to argue this is a unique property.”
On Oct. 20, the judge fined the former president $5,000 after learning the initial post that led to the order had not been removed from his campaign website.
Christopher Kise, one of President Trump’s attorneys, explained that the post had been archived on his website by staff and that its continued visibility there appeared to be due to oversight.
“There was no intention to evade, or circumvent, or ignore the order,” Mr. Kise said.
The former president is also battling criminal charges in New York, Georgia, and two federal cases.
The Republican National Committee did not return a request for comment.
