ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Teams at Herb Brooks Arena in St. Cloud put the finishing touches on the game before former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, to hold a meeting Saturday evening.
The event draws people from across the state, including sisters Kelly and Cassidy Baatz, who drove three and a half hours from Crookston and camped there overnight to be first in line to see the former president.
“I just didn’t want to miss this opportunity, especially in our home state,” said Cassidy Baatz.
For Mayor Dave Kleis, this weekend is all about showing off the city and building on a historic list of politicians who have visited the city.
“Go back, Eisenhower was here,” Kleis said. “John F. Kennedy would have been here, but because of a snowstorm in Minneapolis, he was stuck and called into a meeting in 1962.”
Hotels in the city are already sold out, as thousands are expected to descend on St. Cloud. Mandy Cox, who works at the Boulder Tap House, about 3.5 miles east of the arena, said she is getting extra staff to help.
“We’ve gone ahead and doubled our prep list, we’ve set up a handful of in-house services,” she said. “We’ve got all the big executives on board.”
Tickets are still available for the event, which has a maximum capacity of 6,000. The rally starts at 7 p.m.
The visit comes after President Biden decided earlier this week to withdraw from the 2024 race. Since his announcement, Vice President Harris has already broken a fundraising recordclosed hundreds of delegates And critical approvals secured in her efforts to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Biden won Minnesota in 2022, taking 52% of the vote and beating Trump by more than 233,000 votes. Trump visited Minnesota several times prior to the 2020 election, promising never to return if he loses the stateHe last visited in May of this year as the headliner for the State GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner.
