MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump was at the height of his third presidential bid when he walked into the Fiserv Forum less than four months ago, with a bandage around his ear after surviving an assassination attempt and seeing his poll numbers skyrocket against a weakened opponent.
This time, the rendition of his walk-up song “God Bless the USA” was not a live performance. The iconic bandage was gone. And Trump is battling through battleground states in a final sprint to win a race in which Kamala Harris has pulled off a virtual tie.
“Remember, just five months ago, everyone was saying she couldn’t run, that she was downright incompetent, that she was the worst vice president in history,” Trump said from the arena hosting the Republican National Convention in July held. when his victory seemed inevitable to many.
He made his usual exaggerated claims about his position in the polls – but told his supporters:just pretend” he’s in a close race, so they vote.
“We are doing great. We’re leading, I think, about all seven swing states,” Trump continued. ‘But don’t listen to me now. Don’t listen. Just pretend we’re one behind. We are one point behind. Please.”
The energy of his supporters Friday night in Milwaukee was still palpable months later. Neon yellow and orange high-visibility vests were scattered throughout the crowd, a tribute to Trump who donned one earlier this week when he climbed into the passenger seat of a garbage truck in Green Bay — a stunt that played on President Joe’s controversial “garbage” comments Biden.
Trump railed against the audio team responsible for that evening’s events after the crowd at the back of the arena repeatedly shouted that they could not hear him. After removing the microphone from its holder to hold it closer — delivering most of his speech in the onstage position of a stand-up comedian — Trump confessed that he was “sickened” about the “stupid people” using the sound equipment had set up.
“Want to watch me beat the shit out of people backstage?” Trump said, prompting cheers from the crowd.
A few miles away, Harris held her own get-out-the-vote event to galvanize supporters in the state. Recent public opinion polls here, as in the other battlegrounds, show the race to be even. And just two days ago, the candidates were holding out another series of dueling rallies in the state, which had the smallest margins of the three Blue Wall states in 2020.
Similar to her rally in Madison on Wednesday, Harris’ event on Friday was expected to feature a number of celebrity entertainers, in contrast to Trump’s signature, rousing speeches to his base.
Onstage at Fiserv, Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming reminded the audience of what had changed since July. He noted the “history” the party wrote in that “same room” when they nominated Trump for the third time during the summer convention.
“Just 48 hours afterward,” Schimming said, “the Democratic Party dumped their four-term president and named Kamala Harris as their nominee.”
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Here, Trump is trying to recreate the heavy-working-class coalition that fueled his 2016 victory, the first time a Republican won the state since 1984.
Underscoring how close both parties see the race here, former Gov. Scott Walker asked people in the crowd to each “contact at least 47 more voters” in Wisconsin — a reference to Trump who would become the 47th president if he is chosen – to encourage them to do so. vote for Trump.
“Tell them this,” Walker said. “Whatever they think about the posts, the tweets or the comments, this is the truth. Life was better when Donald Trump was president.”
Walker was one of two former Wisconsin governors whom the Trump campaign targeted for him before the rally. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, the state’s longest-serving governor who left office in 2001 after being elected four times, loudly declared that Republicans “aren’t trash people!” and said two of his former staffers came up with the idea for Trump to drive the truck in Green Bay on Wednesday.
