Trump Fans Yell They Want Biden, Not Harris, as 2024 Opponent

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(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump polled supporters at his Michigan rally on whether they would prefer him to run against President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, and a large group of voters indicated they wanted the 81-year-old president to be Trump’s opponent.

The informal suggestion from the crowd at Saturday’s rally reflects a reckoning taking place within both Democratic and Republican circles: Trump is poised to beat Biden, an assertion backed by a series of new polls in recent days.

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“Right now, the Democratic Party leaders are frantically trying to overturn the results of their party’s primary to get corrupt Joe Biden off the ballot,” Trump said at a rally Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “It couldn’t happen to a nicer person,” he joked.

The rally — the first since Trump survived an assassination attempt last week — comes as a rift within the Democratic Party continues to escalate over whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee to face Trump in the November election.

The president is meeting with top political aides this week as he plans to return to the campaign trail despite an onslaught of anxious pleas from fellow Democrats to step down. Harris, as his running mate, is seen as one of the most likely successors should Biden drop out of the race.

Ahead of the rally, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — a likely running mate or running mate for Biden if he drops out of the race — and other Democrats sought to shift attention away from Biden and toward Project 2025, a blueprint on abortion and other issues crafted by former Trump advisers that the former president has said he did not endorse, in an attempt to distance himself from less politically popular elements.

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“I would run against her, actually. I would be very happy with her,” Trump said at a rally in a key swing state that will be crucial to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Trump also spent several minutes describing his relationship with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who recently endorsed the former president and plans to donate millions of dollars to his re-election campaign.

Trump described several phone calls with the billionaire, including conversations about Musk’s business interests, including electric cars and space rockets. Trump praised Musk’s efforts, saying he was able to innovate much faster than the federal government.

“We have to make life good for our smart people,” Trump said, referring to Musk.

Tight security measures

Security was tight in and around Van Andel Arena, with city garbage trucks and a heavy police presence blocking off streets around the facility. The roughly 12,000-seat arena was packed to the brim with people. The indoor venue is easier to secure than the outdoor venue where the shooting occurred Saturday in Pennsylvania.

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But Trump did not strike a new tone that echoed calls for calming the political rhetoric in light of the shooting. Attendees erupted in chants of “killer, killer, killer” at various points during Trump’s speech, echoing the words he shouted as blood poured down his face after he was shot at a rally last week.

Trump was shot in the right ear but survived after a gunman opened fire shortly after he began speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania. A former fire chief was killed and two other people in the crowd were wounded in the shooting. The former president wore a small, flesh-colored bandage over his ear instead of the large white one he had worn last week.

Marlin Eisenberg, 44, a small business owner from Huntsville, Indiana, said he attended the rally last week when Trump was shot and that the shooting was on his mind when he decided to attend the event in Michigan, his 11th speech for Trump.

But wearing a “Trump 2024, Butler, Pennsylvania” T-shirt he bought at a Pennsylvania rally, he said, “I have to put my fears aside” and support Trump.

New running buddy

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The rally was the first since Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate last week. The announcement came at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which culminated Thursday with the former president detailing the horrific assassination attempt on him.

Vance spoke for about 13 minutes before Trump’s speech and received a standing ovation from the crowd. At one point, he said of the “Trump-Vance” signs they were waving: “I have to be honest, it’s a little weird to see my name on those signs.”

Vance said critics call Trump and Republicans radical, but he wondered what was radical about making more goods in the United States instead of abroad as Trump has called for, not getting involved in foreign conflicts because “sometimes that doesn’t concern us” and securing the southern U.S. border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs.

“We want an America that works for Americans, and the only way to do that is to re-elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States,” Vance said to cheers from the crowd. “I will do everything I can, and I know you will too.”

Trump chose Vance, who rose from Appalachian poverty to fame and election to the Senate on his first try in 2022, in part because he was closest to the former president’s populist politics of anyone on his shortlist for vice president.

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Republicans want Vance to appeal to working-class voters in the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden won those states in 2020 after Trump narrowly won them in 2016.

In his acceptance speech in Milwaukee, Vance spoke of auto workers in Michigan, factory workers in Wisconsin, and energy workers in Pennsylvania, saying the Republican Party was done “serving Wall Street” and would “stick with the working man.”

Some Michigan speakers before Trump and Vance said they liked the Ohio senator even though he was from Michigan, a reference to the intense rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan in college football.

Jessica Shaw, 42, a home health care worker from St. Clair, Michigan, said she likes that Vance is young — he won’t turn 40 until next month — and seems like a good family man.

“It would be a huge help to Trump and he could connect with the younger generation,” Shaw added.

—With assistance from Alicia Diaz.

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