Donald Trump, Honing Outsider Message, Backs Term Limits for Congress

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/us/politics/trump-term-limits-congress.html

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COLORADO SPRINGS — Donald J. Trump called for congressional term limits during a swing out West on Tuesday, part of an effort to push a raw outsider message in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign.

In a speech here that aides had hoped would focus his populist, anti-Washington appeal — to “drain the swamp” of the nation’s capital, a phrase Mr. Trump repeated several times — he turned only cursorily, near the middle of his remarks, to what was supposed to be the day’s new policy proposal.

“The time for congressional term limits has finally arrived,” Mr. Trump said, after promising to push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on congressional lawmakers. “Not only will it end our government corruption, but we will end the economic stagnation that we are in right now.”

At a second rally in Colorado, Mr. Trump added specificity, saying he would limit House lawmakers to three terms, or six years, and senators to two terms, or 12 years.

In his speech here, a solidly Republican city, Mr. Trump did not respond to President Obama’s taunt earlier in the day that he “stop whining” about a “rigged” election and instead focus on making his case to voters.

But he also did not exactly heed Mr. Obama’s advice to stop complaining, instead lamenting again what he called the rigged news media, disavowing the polls that have recently showed him slipping further behind Hillary Clinton in Colorado and other battleground states, and mocking his Democratic rival’s health.

“As WikiLeaks proved, the media really is just an extension of the Clinton campaign,” Mr. Trump said as the crowd booed. “The press has created a rigged system and poisoned the mind of so many of our voters. They have rigged it from the beginning by telling totally false stories, most recently about phony allegations, where I have been under constant attack.”

And Mr. Trump again returned to his unsubstantiated claims of an election “stolen” through voter fraud, singling out, with no evidence, black communities as the likely culprits.

“Voter fraud is all too common, and then they criticize us for saying that,” he said. “But take a look at Philadelphia, what’s been going on. Take a look at Chicago. Take a look at St. Louis. Take a look at some of these cities, where you see things happening that are horrendous.”

He added, “And if you talk about it, they say bad things about you, they call you a racist.”

In Grand Junction, Colo., Mr. Trump was more explicit, saying he expected his supporters to engage in poll watching, a practice that Democrats and Republicans have worried could amount to voter intimidation.

After briefly pulling roughly even with Mrs. Clinton here at the end of September, Mr. Trump has fallen in the polls in Colorado; he trails Mrs. Clinton by 11 points in the state in a new head-to-head Quinnipiac University poll, and the Real Clear Politics polling average on Tuesday showed her leading Mr. Trump by eight points here, 46 percent to 38 percent.

Seeming to acknowledge his increasingly challenging political reality, Mr. Trump — who once frequently cited favorable polls to his crowds — sounded a sour note. “Even though we’re doing pretty well in the polls, I don’t believe the polls anymore, I don’t believe them,” he said. “Believe me, folks, we’re doing great.”

Mr. Trump’s two stops in the state were in staunchly Republican areas, part of Mr. Trump’s now default strategy of trying to mobilize every single base voter who helped lift him to his party’s nomination.

After controversies over his treatment of women, Mr. Trump and his aides have all but abandoned trying to win over undecided or independent voters, and are instead working to depress Democratic turnout through increasingly aggressive attacks on Mrs. Clinton.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s team seems determined to show he can compete in Colorado, where Hispanics, many of whom view the Republican nominee unfavorably, could play a pivotal role. Mr. Trump also faces a significant gender gap, and suburban women, especially outside Denver, could pose a challenge.

Mr. Trump has spent $1.9 million on television ads in the state, with $2.5 million more booked through Election Day. The National Rifle Association has helped with about $750,000 more, according to a Republican firm that tracks media buying. In contrast, the Clinton campaign put ads up in Colorado early with $2 million, and has since been supplemented by Priorities USA, a “super PAC” supporting her, which has spent $6 million, with an additional $1 million reserved through Election Day.

In Colorado Springs, Mr. Trump also offered some unsolicited advice to his supporters, which could double, at times, for his own campaign mantra: “Forget the press. Read the internet. Study other things,” he said. “Don’t go for the mainstream media.”