Donald Trump in west Michigan: 'I took a bullet for democracy'

GRAND RAPIDS — Van Andel Arena was brimming with enthusiastic supporters Saturday evening for former President Donald Trump’s first rally with his newly minted running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance.

It was also Trump’s first public rally since he narrowly survived an assassination attempt last Saturday in Pennsylvania. Droves of supporters were wearing apparel featuring the instantly iconic photos of the moments after the shooting.

Judy Wisne of Franklin, a longtime Trump supporter, said she’s felt a shift in the political mood since the attempt on Trump’s life.

She said people now seem “not so angry, they’re very hopeful,” and she’s convinced Trump himself has changed. “He’s softer,” Wisne said. “I love him no matter how he’s acting, but I think he’s more humble.”

But the speech was a return to form for Trump, who moved beyond recent calls for unity to describe a “failing nation” under Joe Biden, who he called “that stupid, that low-IQ president” and “crooked.” 

He referred to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as a “corrupt insider” and used a nearly two-hour speech to rail against immigration, inflation and other national leaders, including United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain.

A large wound dressing that nearly eclipsed Trump’s ear had been replaced by a much smaller bandage.

Democrats have called Trump a threat to democracy, in part because of his failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Michigan and other swing states where he lost. 

Trump reiterated false claims about the 2020 election on Saturday, but he alleged Democrats are "the real enemies of democracy" because some are pushing to replace President Joe Biden on the ticket after he won primary elections.   

"Last week, I took a bullet for democracy," Trump said, referencing the Pennsylvania shooting in which one of his supporters was killed and two others were injured. 

There was a heavy police presence Saturday in Grand Rapids, where the 12,000-seat arena was filled by the time Trump took the stage. Other supporters, still in line, were turned away.

Why West Michigan?

Michigan has become a crucial battleground state for both Trump and Biden, and within it, the Grand Rapids area is one of the most hotly contested areas.

Trump is just 1.7 percentage points ahead of Biden in Michigan according to the most recent polling average from RealClearPolitics. 

West Michigan has long been a conservative bastion, but in areas such as Grand Rapids, demographic change and partisan realignments have led to a tilt toward Democrats.

In 2020, Biden won Grand Rapids’ Kent County, the first Democratic presidential victory there since 1964, and in 2022, Hillary Scholten won election to the U.S. House, becoming the first Democrat to represent the area since Richard Vander Veen left office in 1977.

Reversing Republican losses in the region is key to Trump’s hopes of winning Michigan in November, Republican consultant Dennis Lennox told Bridge.

Expanding GOP margins in West Michigan is necessary, Lennox said, “to offset what are going to be pretty significant losses in Oakland County and Wayne County, just like he's going to have to run up the score in Macomb County,” Lennox said.

But Trump’s campaign is also expanding outreach in minority communities. 

Santino Williams, who is Black, attended the Trump rally, which he said was his first, though he had voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Trump is “a man of God” and a defender of Israel, Williams said, also praising his plainspokenness and anti-tax positions and suggested he’s seeing more support for Trump in his Grand Rapids neighborhood than in the past.

“Back then, a lot of people weren't too fond of (Trump),” he said. “But ever since Biden took office, they’ve seen how crime got worse, the increase in unemployment. They’re starting to realize that Donald Trump wasn't so bad after all.”

Trump, Vance parry Project 2025

The ultraconservative gameplan known as Project 2025 has become a tentpole of Democrats’ attacks against Trump. In a call with reporters ahead of the rally, Democrats strove to intertwine that agenda with their Republican opponents.

“Make no mistake about it, Project 2025 is Donald Trump and JD Vance's agenda. And the Trump-Vance administration will begin implementing it on day one if they're elected,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, said in the call.

But in his Saturday rally, Trump disavowed Project 2025 and called portions of it “seriously extreme.

“I don’t know what the hell it is,” Trump said. “I don’t know anything about it, I don’t want to know anything about it. What they do is misinformation and disinformation.”

Democrats, however, point to an address Trump delivered at an April 2022 dinner for the Heritage Foundation, which is leading Project 2025. There, he addressed the crowd and told them, “this is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”

Vance, in his first joint campaign rally with Trump, delivered a speech criticizing characterizations of Trump’s platform as radical.

“What is radical about making more of our own stuff in Michigan, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania? Nothing,” Vance said. “What is radical about telling the drug cartels and violent gangs across the world you’re not welcome in this country?”

Biden replacement woes

The reigning uncertainty and anxiety among Democrats regarding the future of Biden’s reelection campaign gave Trump an opportunity to gloat over the disorder.

“At this moment Democratic Party Bosses are trying to overthrow the results of their own party’s primaries to dump crooked Joe Biden from the ballot,” Trump said on stage, asserting this showed Democrats were “the enemies of democracy.”

At one point, Trump took an informal audience poll of who his supporters would like him to face this fall, including Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Whitmer, who has said she is not interested in replacing Biden on the ticket this year, is "terrible," Trump said. "I'd like to run against her, actually."

Vance and other speakers used their time on stage to attack Harris amid speculation that if Biden dropped out of the race she would be his likely replacement.

“What has (Harris) done other than collect a check from her political offices,” Vance asked the crowd.

U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, attacked Harris as the “supposed border czar,” a title Biden gave her as he tasked her with work on immigration policy. 

She “hasn’t lifted a finger” to address the stream of undocumented migrants in the U.S., Bergman alleged.