Trump returns to campaign in Michigan with new running mate at his side

LANSING, Michigan. – Republican Donald Trump will hold his first public campaign rally on Saturday since he was wounded in an assassination attempt, with an event in the crucial state of Michigan alongside his new running mate.

The joint meeting with Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is the pair’s first since they officially became the GOP nominees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Trump kicked off the Republican gathering by naming Vance as his vice presidential nominee and closed it with a speech urging unity following a July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania that left Trump bleeding in an ear and one person dead.

“I am running for president for all of America, not for half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” Trump said Thursday night in what was the longest convention speech in modern history, clocking in at just under 93 minutes.

Michigan is one of the crucial swing states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential election. Trump narrowly won the state by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden won it back in 2020, winning by a margin of 154,000 votes to clinch the presidency. With Vance at his side, Trump will deliver speeches in Grand Rapids, a historically Republican stronghold that has turned increasingly blue in recent elections.

Trump’s selection of Vance was seen as a move to build support among so-called Rust Belt voters in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, who helped Trump secure his surprise victory in 2016. Vance specifically mentioned those places during his RNC acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in poverty in a small town in Ohio and promising not to forget the working class, whose “jobs were sent overseas and their children were sent to war.”

Democrats dominated recent elections in Michigan, but Republicans now see an opening in the state as Democrats grow increasingly divided over whether Biden should withdraw from the race. Biden has insisted he will not withdraw and has tried to turn the focus back on Trump. On Friday, he said Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention showed a “dark vision for the future.”

The 81-year-old incumbent Democrat, who appeared in Detroit last week, is currently isolating at his beachfront home in Delaware after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

Grand Rapids is the largest city in Kent County, one of three Michigan counties that Trump won in 2016 but Biden flipped in 2020. It’s also an area where Nikki Haley secured a significant number of votes in the Republican primary in February, a group of voters both presidential campaigns now hope to win over.

Democrat Hillary Scholten, Rep. from Grand Rapids, is among a growing number of lawmakers calling on Biden to resign after a disastrous debate performance.