The road less traveled: Trump to make first California trip after largely homebound first year

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption FACT CHECK: White House Opaque on Travel Costs President Donald Trump says spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf club instead of the Trump Tower in New York saves taxpayers money. But does it? The White House makes it hard for taxpayers to know anything about the costs. (May 8)

WASHINGTON — California, here he comes.

President Trump will make a long-overdue trip to the Golden State next week, ending what had become the longest that any modern president had gone without visiting the nation's most populous state.

But California shouldn't take it as a snub: Trump is the least-traveled president since Ronald Reagan, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

"He seems to be traveling a lot, but so much of it seems to be traveling to second homes," said Brendan Doherty, a political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy who tracks official presidential travel. His neglect of California for the first 14 months of his presidency, he said, is a conspicuous departure from past presidents.

In fact, the last president to travel to California so late in his presidency was Franklin Roosevelt, who was inaugurated in 1933 and didn't visit until he dedicated the Hoover Dam in 1935. (In an era before Air Force One, Roosevelt got there by train and then had his motorcade get lost on the way to Los Angeles.)

If there's a pattern to Trump's travel 14 months into his presidency, it's that he seems to favor battleground states — especially those in the Rust Belt — where he can fly in and out in one day.

His most-visited state, outside his home states of New York and Florida, is Pennsylvania, where he'll go for the fifth time this weekend for a campaign rally in Pittsburgh. He has visited Ohio, Texas and West Virginia three times each.

The USA TODAY analysis, based largely on Doherty's data, counts only public events and excludes personal visits to his homes in Palm Beach, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J. It also doesn't include four international trips to the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Trump's focus on battleground states isn't unusual; many of his predecessors found reasons to hold official events in politically important states. What's different is that Trump is already in full re-election mode, holding campaign rallies in battleground states three years before the next presidential election.

But he also has held campaign rallies in a number of "safe" red states like Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.

"He seems to like to go places where he's already very popular or is likely to get a raucous welcome," Doherty said.

In other words, Trump's presidential travel has largely followed the template of his campaign travel.

"He doesn’t seem to have the sort of creative-enough staffers to push him out of the bubble, out of his comfort zone, to do anything outside the playbook," said Josh King, a former Democratic presidential campaign staffer and author of Off Script: An Advance Man’s Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide.

Except for foreign trips, Trump has spent only one night of his presidency at a hotel he didn't own. Last August, he slept in Phoenix after a rally before leaving for Reno the next morning.

That Phoenix rally illustrated the challenges of planning events for Trump, who prefers speaking in large arenas rather than more intimate gatherings. After seeing thousands of empty seats at the Phoenix Convention Center, Trump fired his advance director, George Gigicos. (Gigicos declined to comment Wednesday.)

King said Trump can be an effective communicator in the White House, using frequent photo opportunities capturing attention even given his love-hate relationship with the media.

"When he gets on the road, though, it’s a different matter. There are very few plays in the playbook," he said.

Trump's visit to Southern California next week will focus on his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the long-rumored trip Wednesday in response to a question from USA TODAY.

"Why it's taken so long? I think it's because he's been busy growing the economy, creating jobs, defeating ISIS, remaking the judiciary. I'd be happy to name off some other successes," she said.

Details of the California trip haven't been released, but the Federal Aviation Administration has placed flight restrictions — commonly used to clear a flight plan for Air Force One — around San Diego next Tuesday, and Los Angeles next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Contributing: David Jackson in Washington and Rafael Carranza of the Arizona Republic in Phoenix.