The Trump campaign is sending volunteers to a Florida gun show this weekend as part of an effort to sign up new voters in the battleground state.
According to a new report published by Politico, an internal “Trump Victory Team” email circulated Thursday, days after a pair of mass shootings stunned the nation, said the upcoming gun show in South Florida was “a great opportunity to make sure people are up to date on their voter registration and know more about the efforts of the Trump administration to address public safety and second amendments rights.”
Democrats quickly criticized the effort, accusing the GOP of “promoting National Rifle Association propaganda” in the aftermath of shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
“It’s dangerous and frankly unbelievable that after a weekend of back-to-back mass shootings that the Trump campaign and the Florida Republican Party would promote registering voters at gun shows,” Democratic Party Executive Director Juan Peñalosa told Politico in an email. “It is more evidence that they are in the pocket of the NRA and completely out of touch with the American people.”
As noted in the report, the gun show is being held at the Dodge City Center, just a few miles of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, where 17 people were killed in a February 2018 shooting.
The move comes as former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum and the Democratic Party mount their own voter registration drive to defeat Trump.
