Trump heads to crucial battleground state to tout administration’s coronavirus efforts

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Trump to tour Arizona mask factory to highlight public-private partnership in fighting COVID-19

President Trump heads to Arizona as the White House pushes back on a new FEMA memo projecting higher cases and death tolls; John Roberts reports from the White House.

Anchored mostly to the White House since the coronavirus outbreak shut down the country, President Trump on Tuesday set out on his first long-distance trip since the pandemic struck.

The president flies to Arizona to tour a Honeywell International facility in Phoenix, where they manufacture N95 masks essential to doctors, nurses and first responders on the front lines in the fight against the outbreak.

"Honeywell has been one of many private-sector partners who really stepped in and stepped up for this country. In this case, Honeywell committed to and, in fact, delivered its commitment to producing high-quality N95 face masks and respirators," counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday on "Fox and Friends."

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The quick visit may be the first in a series of trips by Trump to highlight his administration's efforts in combating the crisis.

“We’re going to start to move around," the president said last week. "I've been at the White House now for many months, and I'd like to get out."

It’s a model already tested by Vice President Pence, who last week made multiple stops outside of the nation’s capital to highlight the administration’s coronavirus efforts.

Rick Gorka – a spokesman for the Trump reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee – told Fox News that the trip to Arizona gives the president an opportunity to thank those directly contributing to the battle against the coronavirus.

“The businesses there have been a key contributor to producing the resources necessary to combat COVID,” Gorka noted. “A presidential visit is the ultimate way to show respect and thank individuals for what they’re doing in times of crisis.”

While this is an official White House visit rather than a Trump reelection campaign trip, there are politics at play.

Arizona is considered one of a half-dozen crucial general election battleground states and the top nonpartisan political handicappers rank the state as a toss-up between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden – the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“President Trump will try to paper over his administration’s failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic when he travels today to Arizona — but nothing can cover up how he failed to prepare our country for this pandemic and his slow response,” Biden argued in a statement Tuesday.

“Grandstanding isn’t going to help Arizonans get the resources they need to move forward. What we need is action," the former vice president emphasized.

The trip is Trump's second to Arizona in less than three months. The president was there in February – to tout a robust national economy – as he headlined a large campaign rally in an arena in Phoenix.

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Republicans have carried the state in 16 of the past 17 presidential elections, but Trump won Arizona by 3.5 points in 2016, down from 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s 9-point victory four years earlier. An average of the most recent Trump-Biden general election matchup polls in the state compiled by Real Clear Politics indicates Biden with a 4-point edge.

Stan Barnes, a former GOP state representative and senator, noted that “I don’t think it’s an accident that he’s coming to Arizona.”

Arizona’s also home to one of the most crucial Senate races in the country, as the Democrats try to regain the chamber. Republican Sen. Martha McSally – the veteran U.S. Air Force pilot who a year and a half ago was appointed by GOP Gov. Doug Ducey to the seat long held by the late Sen. John McCain – is trailing in the latest polls to Democratic challenger and former astronaut Mark Kelly.

Ahead of the trip, the Arizona Democratic Party took aim at the president, tweeting that “Trump is leaving D.C. for the first time since late March and returns to Arizona facing perhaps his starkest political challenge yet. He is broadly unpopular, trailing in the polls and the pandemic-ravaged economy is in tatters.”

But Barnes, a longtime Republican consultant in the state, countered that “no one in my circle believes the polls, but we all have the instinct that Arizona’s going to be close.”

And he emphasized that “we’re all skeptical about the polls, but we are not skeptical about Arizona being in play and being a real battleground state not only for the presidency, but for the majority of the United States Senate.”

Fox News' Matt Leach and Kelly Chernenkoff contributed to this report.