Former US President, Donald Trump has made his first public campaign rally since he was injured in an assassination attempt.
The presidential candidate for the Republicans will take part in an event in the battleground state of Michigan alongside his new running mate.
The joint rally with Ohio senator JD Vance is the first for the pair since they became the party’s nominees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Mr. Trump kicked off the gathering of Republicans by naming Mr. Vance as his vice presidential choice, and concluded it with a speech urging unity following a July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania that left the former president with a bloodied ear and killed one man in the crowd.
Michigan is one of the crucial swing states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential election.
Mr. Trump narrowly won the state by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden flipped it back in 2020, winning by a margin of 154,000 votes on his way to the presidency.
In what was regarded as one of the longest convention speech on Thursday, Trump said “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America”.
Mr. Trump’s choice of Mr. Vance was seen as a move to gain support among so-called Rust Belt voters in places like .Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio who helped Mr. Trump notch his surprise 2016 victory.
Mr. Vance specifically mentioned those places during his acceptance speech at the convention, stressing his roots growing up poor in small-town Ohio and pledging not to forget working-class people whose “jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war”.
Democrats have dominated recent elections in Michigan, but Republicans now see an opening in the state as Democrats are increasingly divided about whether Mr. Biden should drop out of the race.
The President has insisted he is not quitting, and has attempted to turn the focus back towards Mr. Trump, saying that his challenger’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention showcased a “dark vision for the future”.
The 81-year-old Democratic incumbent, who appeared in Detroit this month, is currently isolating at his beach home in Delaware after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
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