TITTABAWASSEE TOWNSHIP, MI — Six weeks after his Democratic opponent campaigned there, Donald Trump spent about two hours on Saginaw County soil Wednesday, May 1, in his campaign to win back the presidency.
This was a familiar scene to some. The former president’s political rally here was his second campaign-driven visit to the MBS International Airport hangar that hosted this week’s event. His first trip came in September 2020, when Trump was weeks shy of losing his bid for a second term in office.
Political science experts predicted Trump would target mid-Michigan on the campaign trail again, citing the region’s status as a bellwether lately for presidential election outcomes.
So, what did his return here teach us about his 2024 campaign?
Here are five key takeaways from the Wednesday rally:
He has Michigan angles
Trump’s 75-minute address touched on plenty of national and international policy issues, but he also zeroed in on topics with appeal exclusively to Michigan.
He discussed plans to pursue a military defense system he compared to Israel’s “iron dome,” telling the crowd Michigan would serve as a manufacturer for the project, creating jobs.
Trump also claimed present-day Democratic policies were hurting the American automotive manufacturing industry, a staple of Michigan’s economy.
The former president also repeated old criticisms of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic-era stay-at-home public health policies that he and other critics argued were too strict.
Another very Michigan element of the Wednesday rally: His private Boeing 757 jet arrived as the airport’s speakers shook the crowd with the music of Kid Rock, a Michigan native.
Trump’s not big on Biden
Trump uttered the name “Joe” or “Biden” 20 times during his campaign address, and all of those mentions came attached to warnings that a second term for the current president would prove harmful to the nation.
“Everything’s bad,” Trump told the crowd. “The people are going to find crooked Joe Biden guilty of destroying our country.”
Trump’s criticism of Biden included the Democrat’s policies on border security and electric vehicle manufacturing.
Trump’s 2020 campaign isn’t finished
Four years later, Trump continues to tell followers the 2020 election was “rigged” to favor Biden, a claim disproven in courts and abandoned by many Republicans fearful the aging talking point could harm future election turnout.
Trump on Wednesday both revisited the grievance and assured the crowd their vote would matter this time around.
“We are going to make sure what happened in 2020 is never going to happen again,” Trump said. “We’ll make sure your ballot is secured. We’ll watch the radical left Democrats like hawks because — I don’t like saying this — they cheat like hell.”
His legal troubles are campaign material
His trip Wednesday to Michigan came during an off-day in court proceedings for Trump who, since early April, has attended his own criminal trial in Manhattan. There, he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to bury stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign.
At the mid-Michigan rally, though, Trump talked about the trial in terms akin to his claims about the 2020 election, using words such as “rigged” to describe both.
He called the courtroom “a kangaroo court with a corrupt judge.”
The comments came one day after Trump was held in contempt of court and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money case.
If he violates the gag order again, New York Judge Juan M. Merchan warned the former president, Trump could be jailed.
Trump still has fans
While exact attendance numbers were not available as of the publication of this report, it appeared thousands of people flocked to MBS International Airport for Trump’s rally.
Most of the crowd came wearing at least one item of clothing or swag expressing support for Trump. Some people wore nothing but Trump-supporting attire.
They cheered his arrival for about 20 consecutive minutes, from when his private jet appeared in the mid-Michigan sky until Trump took the stage to deliver his address to them.
More than once, the attendees interrupted his remarks with repeated chants of “Trump.”
“What a crowd,” he responded.
Want more Bay City- and Saginaw-area news? Bookmark the local Bay City duck Saginaw news page or sign up for the free3@3″ daily newsletter for Bay City and Saginaw.
