Donald Trump polled supporters at a Michigan rally on whether he would rather run against President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. An overwhelming majority of voices suggest they want the 81-year-old president to be Trump’s opponent.
Article author:
Published July 20, 2024 • 5 minutes of reading
Content of the article
(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump polled supporters at a Michigan rally on whether he would rather run against President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. An overwhelming majority of voices suggest they want the 81-year-old president to be Trump’s opponent.
An unofficial suggestion from the crowd at Saturday’s rally reflected the reckoning taking place among Democrats and Republicans: Trump is poised to defeat Biden, a claim supported by several recent polls.
Advertising 2
Content of the article
“At this moment, the bosses of the Democratic party are frantically trying to overturn their own party’s primaries to throw crooked Joe Biden off the ballot,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,” he quipped.
The rally — the first since Trump survived an assassination attempt last week — comes as the Democratic intra-party dispute continues to escalate over whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee to face Trump in the November election.
The president huddled this weekend with top political aides as he plans to return to the campaign trail despite anxious calls from Democrats to back off. Harris, as his running mate, is seen as one of the most likely successors if Biden withdraws from the race.
Before the rally, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer – a potential candidate or candidate if Biden drops out of the race – and other Democrats sought to get rid of Biden and go to Project 2025, a blueprint on abortion and other issues designed by the former Trump. adviser that the former president said he did not sanction, in an attempt to get rid of the most popular political elements.
Top Stories
Content of the article
Advertising 3
Content of the article
“I want to fight him, that’s right,” Trump said, referring to Whitmer, at a rally in a key swing state that will be critical in deciding the 2024 presidential election. “I would be very happy with him.”
Trump also spent a few minutes explaining his relationship with the CEO of Tesla Inc. Elon Musk, who recently endorsed the former president and plans to give millions to his re-election bid.
Trump recounted several phone calls with the billionaire, including conversations about Musk’s business interests, including electric cars and space rockets. Trump praised Musk’s efforts, saying he can innovate faster than the federal government.
“We need to make life good for smart people,” Trump said, referring to Musk.
Tight Security
Security is tight in and around the Van Andel Arena, with city dump trucks and police blocking off roads around the facility. The floor and almost every seat in the 12,000 seat capacity arena was filled. Indoor venues are easier to secure than open-air venues where a shooting happened last Saturday in Pennsylvania.
Advertising 4
Content of the article
However, Trump did not adopt a new tone that reflects the call for heated political rhetoric during the shooting. The audience chanted “war, fight, fight” at various points during Trump’s speech, echoing the words he shouted as he pumped blood into his face after being shot at a rally last week.
Trump was hit by a bullet in his right ear but survived after a lone gunman opened fire shortly after he began speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania. A former fire chief was killed and two other people in the crowd were injured in the shooting. The former president wore a small flesh-colored bandage over his ear instead of a large white one last week.
Marlin Eisenburg, 44, a small business owner from Huntersville, Indiana, said he attended a rally last week when Trump was shot and that the shooting crossed his mind when he decided to attend the event in Michigan, which was Trump’s 11th speech.
But wearing a “Trump 2024, Butler, PA” T-shirt he bought at a Pennsylvania rally, he said “I’ve got to get over my fear” and support Trump.
The new Running Mate
Advertising 5
Content of the article
The rally was also the first since Trump named Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate last week. The announcement came at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that culminated on Thursday with the former president detailing attempts to destroy his life.
Vance spoke about 13 minutes before Trump’s speech and received a standing ovation from the crowd. At one point, he said of the “Trump-Vance” signs he said, “I have to be honest, it’s a little weird to see my name on those signs.”
Vance said critics called Trump and Republicans radical but asked what was radical about making more things in the US than overseas as Trump has suggested, not getting involved in foreign conflicts because “sometimes it’s none of our business” and securing the southern US border so that stop. the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs.
“We want America to work for America, and the only way to do that is to reelect Donald J. Trump president of the United States,” Vance said to cheers from the crowd. “I’ll do everything I can, I know you will too.”
Trump chose Vance, who rose from Appalachian poverty to fame in Hillbilly Elegy and election to the Senate in his first attempt in 2022, in part because he was the closest to the former president’s populist politics of anyone on the short list to be his running mate.
Advertising 6
Content of the article
Republicans want Vance to appeal to working-class voters in the so-called Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden carried the state in 2020 after Trump narrowly won in 2016.
In his acceptance speech in Milwaukee, Vance spoke of auto workers in Michigan, factory workers in Wisconsin and energy workers in Pennsylvania by saying the GOP is done “catering to Wall Street” and will be “committed to working people.”
Several Michigan speakers before Trump and Vance said they liked the Ohio Senators even though he was a Buckeye, pointing to the fierce rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan in college football.
Jessica Shaw, 42, a home health care worker from St. Clair, Michigan, said she likes that Vance is young — he doesn’t turn 40 until next month — and seems like a good family.
“He will be a great help to Trump and he can relate to the younger generation,” Shaw said.
—With assistance from Alicia Diaz.
Content of the article
