Trump returns to Wisconsin to launch a final weekend of campaign

MILWAUKEE – Donald Trump was at the pinnacle of his third presidential bid when he walked into Fiserv Forum less than four months ago, his ear bandaged after surviving an assassination attempt and his poll numbers surging against a weakened opponent.

This time, the rendition of his “God Bless the USA” walkup song wasn’t a live performance. The iconic bandage was gone. And Trump, on a final sprint through the battleground states, is fighting to win a race that Kamala Harris has made a virtual tie.

“You remember, just five months ago, everybody was saying she couldn't run, she’s grossly incompetent, she was the worst vice president in history,” Trump said from the arena where the Republican National Convention was held in July, at a time when his victory, to many, seemed inevitable.

He made his usual exaggerated claims about his standing in the polls — but told his supporters to “just pretend” he’s in a tight race so they go and vote.

“We're doing great. We're leading, just about, I think, all seven swing states,” Trump continued. “But don't listen to me now. Don't listen. Just pretend we’re one down. We're one point down. Please.”

The energy of his supporters Friday night in Milwaukee was still palpable months later. Neon yellow and orange visibility vests dotted the crowd, a tribute to Trump having donned one earlier this week when he hopped into the passenger seat of a garbage truck in Green Bay — a stunt seizing on President Joe Biden’s controversial “garbage” remarks.

Trump railed against the audio team in charge of the night’s events after the crowd in the back of the arena repeatedly shouted that they couldn’t hear him. After removing the microphone from its holster to hold it closer — giving the majority of his speech in the onstage position of a standup comic — Trump confessed he was “seething” about the “stupid people” who set up the sound equipment.

“Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?” Trump said, prompting some cheers from the crowd.

Several miles away, Harris was holding her own get-out-the-vote event to energize supporters in the state. Recent public polling here, as in the other battlegrounds, shows the race tied. And just two days ago, the candidates held another set of dueling rallies in the state, which had the closest margins of the three Blue Wall states in 2020.

As with her rally in Madison on Wednesday, Harris’ event Friday was scheduled to feature a number of celebrity entertainers, in contrast with Trump’s signature winding speeches addressed to his base.

On stage at Fiserv, Brian Schimming, the chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, reminded the crowd of what all had changed since July. He noted the “history” the party made in that “very same room,” when they nominated Trump a third time during the summer convention.

“Just 48 hours after that,” Schimming said, “the Democratic Party dumped their four-year president and made Kamala Harris their nominee.”

The audience erupted in booing.

Trump is trying to recreate the heavily working-class coalition here that fueled his win in 2016, the first time a Republican won the state since 1984.

Underscoring how close both sides 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 becoming the 47th president if he is elected — to urge them to vote for Trump.

“Tell them this,” Walker said. “No matter what they think about the posts or 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 the Trump campaign had stumping 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 “are not garbage people!” and said that two of his former staffers had come up with the idea for Trump to ride in the truck on Wednesday in Green Bay.