ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former President Donald Trump will head to Minnesota on a day off from his hush money trial for a Republican fundraiser Friday night in a traditionally Democratic state that he boasts he can carry in November.
Trump will headline the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner in St. Paul, which coincides with the party’s state convention, after attending his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida. Trump attended the graduation Friday morning with his wife, Melania Trump, and her father, Viktor Knavs.
Barron Trump, Trump’s youngest son, graduated from the private Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach.
The former president had long complained Judge Juan M. Merchan would not let him attend the graduation before Merchan agreed not to hold court Friday.
Trump will use part of the day granted by the trial judge for the graduation to campaign in Minnesota, a state he argues he can win in the November rematch with President Joe Biden. No Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972, but Trump came close to flipping the state in 2016, when he fell 1.5 percentage points short of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
