Trump cheered by thousands in big rally at the Jersey Shore – NJ.com
Former President Donald Trump speaks during his beachfront campaign rally in Wildwood on Saturday.Dave Hernandez | For NJ Advance
With iconic boardwalk rides towering around him, former President Donald Trump on Saturday evening made sweeping vows about New Jersey, bashed President Joe Biden, and railed about his legal woes in a winding speech before thousands of his rabid supporters at a campaign rally on the beach in Wildwood.
Six months to Election Day, the presumptive Republican nominee once again predicted he will do something no presidential candidate from his party has done since 1988: carry the deep-blue Garden State, which he has lost twice by double digits.
“As you can see today, we’re expanding the electoral map,” Trump told the audience gathered on the sand in the famed Jersey Shore city. “We’re going to win the state of New Jersey.”
During his 90-minute speech, Trump repeatedly hit Biden, his Democratic opponent, over inflation. He argued that high prices on items such as hot dogs — like the one he said he ate just before the event — are draining the wallets of Jersey residents.
The former Atlantic City casino mogul — who still spends summers at the golf club he owns in Bedminster — also declared that “I love the Jersey Shore” and “I know better than more people here, I hate to tell you.”
“If you want lower costs, higher income, and more weekends down at the Shore … you have to vote for a gentleman named Donald J. Trump,” said the former president, decked in a navy suit, red tie, and red MAGA hat.
“If Joe Biden wins this election, the middle class loses and New Jersey loses.”
Meanwhile, speaking after a key week in his hush-money case, Trump blamed Biden for the charges he faces, calling it a “Biden show trial” while deriding the president as “a total moron” and accusing him of being “surrounded by fascists around the Oval Office.”
And as former New York Giants Lawrence Taylor and Ottis Anderson watched from the crowd, Trump proclaimed dominance over New Jersey’s most famous rock star.
“We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen,” Trump said.
In other words, it was a Jersey-fied edition of one of his usual sprawling, irreverent, hyperbolic, and frequently fact-checked stump speeches.
Despite the state’s Democratic bent and diverse population, Trump also filled his comments with sharp right-wing views, such as curbing immigration, lamenting affordable housing rules, questioning the legitimacy of mail-in voting, and leaving abortion policies up to the states. He promised to deport any foreign student who bring “jihadism or antisemitism” to colleges in the U.S., as well.
It marked the second time in four years Trump hosted a rally in Wildwood. The last time was a winter-season event inside the local convention center in 2020, 10 months before he lost to Biden.
This one was held outside along the Atlantic Ocean, with the boardwalk’s famous ferris wheel and Great White roller coaster providing the backdrop, during a breezy and busy May weekend. It comes as Trump and Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominees, prepare to face off in a rematch in November.
Lisa Fagan, a spokeswoman for the city, told The Associated Press she estimated the crowd to be between 80,000 and 100,000 people, based on having seen “dozens” of other events in the same space. That is much larger than the 40,000 the city’s mayor said the beach could accommodate.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd Dist., said from the stage this was the largest political rally in New Jersey history — though it likely falls short short of when then-presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in Sea Girt in 1932, a gathering that reportedly drew 120,000 people.
Saturday’s rally also came as Trump continues to be on on trial in a courtroom two hours north in Manhattan. Trump faces three other unrelated criminal indictments, as well.
He appeared Saturday under a judge’s gag order that limits his legal ability to comment publicly on witnesses, jurors, and some others connected to the trial. The judge already has fined Trump $9,000 for violating the order and warned jail could follow if he doesn’t comply.
At the rally, Trump dismissed the case as a “sham” and referred to the judge as “corrupt.”
He also compared himself to notorious gangster Al Capone.
“I got indicted more than him,” Trump said. “On bulls**t, too.”
Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration and Democratic officials in New York of using the legal system to block his return to the Oval Office. Prosecutors allege Trump broke the law to conceal an affair with porn actor Stormey Daniels that would have hurt his first presidential bid.
Last week, Trump was forced to sit through testimony from Daniels, who described a sexual encounter with the former president in stunning detail. Trump is set to return to the courtroom next week, when prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, expected to take the witness stand.
Biden, meanwhile, began the weekend with a series of fundraising events on the West Coast and has so far avoided discussing Trump’s legal woes.
Democrats held a press call Friday in advance of Trump’s appearance, noting that the U.S. lost a net 2.7 million jobs during Trump’s time in the White House — a period affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Under Biden, U.S. employment is 10% above where it was when he took office.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, also fired a shot against Trump on social media.
“As Trump holds his rally today in NJ, he remains focused on himself, not the American people,” the New Jersey governor wrote. “Joe Biden continues to deliver results: investing in infrastructure, reducing prescription drug costs, and protecting reproductive freedom. The choice is clear.”
National polls show a close race. In New Jersey, a recent survey from Emerson College found Biden leading Trump here only by 7 percentage points and by only 5 when third party candidates are added.
Though New Jersey is heavily Democratic, there are pockets of MAGA support here. Wildwood is in the middle of one swath.
Saturday’s crowd also likely included many residents from neighboring Pennsylvania, a critical swing state.
“I went to school in Pennsylvania,” Trump, a 1968 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told the audience.
Trump said Saturday he plans to make a play for several other traditionally blue states, such as Minnesota and Virginia.
“And actually many other states. This guy’s so damn bad, it could be all of them,” he said of Biden.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump noted New Jersey is “home to some of the toughest, smartest, and most talented Americans ever to walk the face of the earth.”
“This is the state that pioneered the boardwalk, the diner, the motion picture, and gave the world America legends like Thomas Edison, Buzz Aldrin, Frank Sinatra, and so many more,” he said.
“But now, we are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has lost its confidence, has lost its willpower and has lost its strength. … But we are not going to allow this horror to continue.”
It would be a massive upset for Trump to take New Jersey. He lost the state to Biden by 16 percentage points in 2020 to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 14 points in 2016 — though a recent poll from Emerson College showed Biden leading Trump here only by 7 percentage points and by only 5 when third party candidates are added.
Michael Tyler, communication director for Biden’s campaign, rejected the idea of Trump winning the state.
“I think here on Planet Earth in the Biden campaign, we’re going to remain laser-focused on winning 270 electoral votes,” Tyler said. “We’re focused on communicating directly with the voters who are actually going to decide this presidential election.”
During Saturday’s speech, Trump also took jabs at the last two New Jersey governors. He cracked jokes about Republican Chris Christie, a one-time ally turned rival who consistently blasted the former president during a presidential campaign that ended weeks before the New Hampshire primary.
“Does anybody like Chris Christie?” Trump asked. “He was a major case of Trump derangement system.”
He referred to Christie as a “fat pig,” as well — an insult he has used before.
Trump then knocked Murphy, promising supporters that if he wins in November, they “won’t have to worry about Gov. Murphy and his 157 windmills” — nods to the wind turbine program at the center of the Democratic governor’s energy policies.
“We are going to make sure that ends on Day 1,” Trump said.
His appearance was a spectacle in Wildwood. From the boardwalk, curious onlookers peered through gaps in a blue plastic barrier attached to a chain link fence running the length of the venue space. Some tore holes in the plastic to get a better view as Trump spoke.
Trump flew from New York City to New Jersey in his trademark blue plane, which soared low over the rally around 4 p.m. His motorcade — carrying North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a possible vice presidential pick — passed under the boardwalk around 5:30 p.m.
The former president arrived on stage around 6:30 p.m. to a roar from the crowd. Still, as Trump’s speech passed the hour mark, a stream of people began exiting the beach. He finished his remarks just before 8 p.m.
Earlier in the rally, Van Drew, a Republican who represents Wildwood in Congress, told the audience “we remember four years ago, when we had a great economy.”
“There is nothing wrong with saying you believe in America,” said the congressman, a former Democrat who switched parties in 2020 and became a vocal Trump backer.
He also touted Trump’s stance on immigration to a cheering crowd.
“Immigration is a good thing,” Van Drew said at one point. “Legal immigration.”
Spotted along the boardwalk were a few people wearing T-shirts that read “Proud Boys,” a right-wing group the Anti-Defamation League has labeled as extremist. Among the crowds gathered at the entrance to the beach awaiting Trump’s arrival were three masked Proud Boys members.
Police said no permits for counterprotests were filed with Wildwood.
NJ Advance Media staff writers Spencer Kent and Andre Malok and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.
Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
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