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Saturday 22 August 2015

Donald Trump tells Alabama pep rally 'I want the election to be held tomorrow'

Donald Trump held the largest campaign event of his 2016 presidential bid to date at a “pep rally” in Alabama, where he called for the election take place tomorrow and received a tacit endorsement from one of the state’s US Senators.


“We could make a call for an expedited election,” Trump told the rally in Mobile. “I would like to have the election tomorrow – I don’t want to wait.”

Trump spoke for just more than an hour, walking to the center of Ladd-Peebles stadium after a flyover in his Boeing 757 plane. He stepped up to the stage as the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Sweet Home Alabamaplayed.

After speaking for a few minutes, he received a de facto endorsement fromAlabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who came on to the stage to say he was “impressed” with Trump’s immigration plan. He would later get into Trump’s caravan as he left the stadium.

“Unbelievable, unbelievable. Oh, it’s so beautiful,” said Trump, as he addressed the crowd estimated at 20,000, far smaller than the roughly 40,000 people his campaign said RSVP’d for the event. “You know, now I know how the great Billy Graham felt,” Trump said about the deceased, celebrity televangelist.

Polls on Friday still placed Trump as a dominant candidate in the Republican presidential nominee field, leading in the early caucus state New Hampshire and nationally. That despite a refusal to release policy statements, and racist and sexistcomments many political observers believe would have withered other candidates.

As night settled in on Ladd-Peebles, Trump hit a series of talking points that have served him well in the race.

He called to build a wall on the US-Mexico border (paid for by Mexico), for an end tobirthright citizenship (“anchor babies”), and questioned why America should protect Japan if it was attacked. He called Bush“weak on immigration” and said Democrat Hillary Clinton wouldn’t “make it to the gate.” He said that despite popular perception, the Triple Crown-winner Secretariat was really not that great of a sire. He said he went to jury duty.

“We have a stock market not doing so well, we have a country not doing so well,” said Trump, referring to the 500 point slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and turmoil in other major indices on Friday. “What’s happening to this country is disgraceful.”

The event was expected to be large enough to be truly disruptive to the southern, Gulf Coast city of about 194,000. It was moved to the Ladd-Peebles stadium after an outpouring of interest in the event. Peebles usually hosts University of South Alabama and Senior Bowl football games.

Stumping in the deep south is uncommon for presidential candidates. Republican support has long been widespread in the region. But the south has become increasingly important to Republican candidates since many states moved up their primary dates.

The so-called SEC Primary (so-named as a reference to the Southeastern Conference of college football) moved forward primary dates forward to 1 March in Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The first primaries take place in Iowa and New Hampshire shortly before.

In a recent poll of about 440 likely Republican voters in New Hampshire, Trump led his closest competitor Jeb Bush by five points, at 18% and 13% respectively. Both were still within the margin of error of 4.8%.
Source (the guardian)

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