Trump will hold a rally at Madison Square Garden in the race's final stretch

NEW YORK — Donald Trump is returning to New York in the race’s final stretch, scheduling a rally at the city's iconic Madison Square Garden.

Trump is planning his event for Oct. 27 to kick off the final week of campaigning, according to a campaign official familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

It will be Trump’s second rally in the city he grew up in following a May stop in the South Bronx that drew a large and diverse crowd. He held another on Long Island last month.

“We have some very big ones coming. We just rented Madison Square Garden. We’re going to make a play for New York,” Trump said at a rally Wednesday afternoon in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

He said his campaign is also looking to rent arenas in Atlanta, Georgia and New Jersey.

Trump has long said he believes that he can win New York, even though it is overwhelmingly Democratic and he has lost the state in the last two elections by more than 20 percentage points. But Trump also relishes staging events that will draw outsized media attention, like one held at the so-called World's Most Famous Arena.

In between stops to critical battleground states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Trump will be traveling this week to states that aren't seen as competitive.

On Friday, he will visit Aurora, Colorado, a town that has become a flashpoint in the debate over the influx of migrants who have entered the country in recent years. Democrat Joe Biden won Colorado in 2020 with 55% of the vote.

This summer, Aurora’s mayor repeated a landlord’s claim that a notorious Venezuelan gang had taken over a rundown apartment complex in the Denver suburb, even though police have said that isn't true.

Trump and other Republicans have nonetheless seized on the claims, with Trump saying during a Fox News town hall that Venezuelans were “taking over the whole town" and telling rallygoers that, if elected, he will deploy federal resources to “liberate” the town.

On Saturday, he will hold a rally in Coachella, California, the site of a major annual outdoor music festival. Trump lost California in the last two elections by about 30 percentage points.

Trump said at his rally that in addition to New York, he is making a play for other Democratic leaning states including New Jersey, Virginia, New Mexico and Minnesota.