US elections: Trump fans yell they want Biden, not Harris, as 2024 opponent

By Mark Niquette
 

Donald Trump polled supporters at his Michigan rally whether they’d prefer for him to run against President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. An overwhelming cacophony of voices suggested they want the 81-year-old president as Trump’s opponent.
 

The informal suggestion from the crowd at Saturday’s rally mirrors a reckoning occurring within both Democratic and Republican circles: Trump is poised to beat Biden, an assertion that is backed by a spate of of new polling in recent days.

“At this very moment, Democrat party bosses are frantically trying to overthrow the results of their own party’s primaries to dump crooked Joe Biden from the ballot,” Trump said at the rally on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” he quipped. 

The rally — the first since Trump survived an assassination attempt last week — comes as the Democratic intra-party dissension continues to escalate over whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee to face Trump in the November election. 

The president is huddling this weekend with top political aides as he plots a return to the campaign trail despite an onslaught of anxious pleas from fellow Democrats to step aside. Harris, as his running mate, is seen as one of the most likely successors should Biden bow out of the race.

Ahead of the rally, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer — a potential nominee or running mate if Biden does quit the race — and other Democrats sought to turn attention away from Biden and toward Project 2025, a blueprint on abortion and other issues being drafted by former Trump advisers that the former president has said he hasn’t sanctioned, in an attempt to distance himself from the lest politically popular elements.

“I’d like to run against her, actually,” Trump said, referring to Whitmer, at the rally in a key swing state that will be critical for deciding the 2024 presidential election. “I’d be very happy with her.”

Trump also spent several minutes describing his relationship with Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who recently endorsed the former president and is planning to give millions to his reelection bid. 

Trump recounted several phone calls with the billionaire, including conversations about Musk’s business interest, including electric cars and space rockets. Trump lauded 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
 

Security was tight in and around the Van Andel Arena, with city dump trucks and a heavy police presence blocking off the streets around the facility. The floor and nearly every seat of the 12,000-seat capacity arena was filled. The indoor venue is easier to secure than an open-air venue where the shooting occurred last Saturday in Pennsylvania.

Trump, however, did not adopt a new tone reflecting the calls for cooling heated political rhetoric in light of the shooting. Attendees broke out in chants of “fight, fight, fight” at different points during Trump’s speech, echoing the words he shouted while pumping his first with blood on his face after he was shot at last week’s rally.

Trump was struck by a bullet on his right ear but survived after a lone gunman opened fire shortly after he began speaking at the rally in Pennsylvania. A former fire chief was killed and two other people in the crowd were injured in the shooting. The former president wore a small, flesh-colored bandage on his ear rather than the large white one he had last week.

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

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

New running mate
 

The rally was also the first since Trump named Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate last week. The announcement came at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that culminated on Thursday with the former president describing in detail the harrowing attempt on his life.

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

Vance said critics call Trump and Republicans radical but asked what’s radical about making more goods in the US rather than overseas as Trump has advocated, not getting involved in foreign conflicts because “sometimes it’s none of our business” and securing the southern US border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs.

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

Trump selected Vance, who rose from Appalachian poverty to Hillbilly Elegy fame and election to the Senate on his first try in 2022, in part because he was most closely aligned with the former president’s populist politics of anyone on his shortlist for running mate.

Republicans would like for Vance to appeal to working-class voters in the so-called Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden carried the states in 2020 after Trump narrowly won them in 2016.

In his acceptance speech in Milwaukee, Vance talked about the autoworker in Michigan, the factory worker in Wisconsin and the energy worker in Pennsylvania in saying the GOP is done “catering to Wall Street” and will “commit to the working man.”

Some Michigan speakers before Trump and Vance said they liked the Ohio Senator even though he’s a Buckeye, referencing 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 doesn’t turn 40 until next month – and appears to be a good family man.

“He’ll be a big help to Trump and can relate to the younger generation,” Shaw said.