US mid-term elections: Presidential brawl for soul of democracy

Donald Trump has launched a blistering attack on Joe Biden’s Democrats and all but declared his bid for the presidency in 2024 three days before US mid-term elections.

‘In a very, very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy,’ Donald Trump told a pre-election rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Picture: Reuters

Donald Trump has launched a blistering attack on Joe Biden’s Democrats and all but declared his bid for the presidency in 2024 three days before US mid-term elections in which Republicans could retake control of congress and pave the way for the former president’s political renaissance.

On an unusually warm 24C evening in rural Pennsylvania, thousands of Mr Trump’s most diehard supporters, many draped in Trump merchandise, gathered next to a small regional airport outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to wait for their political hero, queuing for hotdogs as speakers blasted out AC/DC, Tina Turner and Elvis Presley.

In a dramatic entrance at 7.15pm on Saturday (Sunday AEDT), Mr Trump landed in his private jet immediately behind a stage festooned with American flags, disembarking in his trademark red tie and MAGA hat to loud cheers from a 6000-strong crowd eager to hear him declare his political comeback.

Former President Donald Trump attends a rally for Mehmet Oz, Republican Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

“If you want to stop the ­destruction of our country and want to save the American dream, then this Tuesday you must vote Republican,” Mr Trump said, urging the crowd to vote for Republican Senate candidate and television doctor Mehmet Oz.

Supporter Blaise, 57, a porcelain glazer from Pittsburgh, said Mr Trump and America “deserved” another Trump victory in 2024 and the Democrats were “purposely” destroying the country, a stark reminder of the deep division that animates US politics.

“They let enough people, illegals, in this country last month, 273,000 – that’s enough to fill the whole city of Pittsburgh,” he told The Australian, referring to a crisis on the southern border that has helped supercharge support for Republicans, who are expected to prevail in Wednesday’s (AEDT) contest, ending the Democrats’ ability to pass legislation for two years.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Philadelphia. Picture: AFP

In a speech that lasted well over an hour, Mr Trump painted a dystopian picture of life in the US, blaming Mr Biden for rising crime, an explosion of fentanyl deaths, surging illegal immigration and the spectre of nuclear war with Russia. The US under Mr Biden had “stepped over socialism… into communism”.

It was a view starkly at odds with a rival rally across the state in Philadelphia, where Mr Biden and former president Barack Obama stumped for the Democrat candidates for Senate and governor, John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro, painting Republicans as a threat to abortion rights, public healthcare and social security.

“No matter how hard they try to get rid of Obamacare, I’m never going to let it happen,” said Mr Biden, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “I lived in Pennsylvania longer than Oz has lived in Pennsylvania and I moved away when I was 10 years old.”

Mr Obama, who has held numerous rallies at battleground states across the country in recent days to shore up Democrat support, said “democracy itself” was on the ballot and declared Mr Biden, 79, whose faltering performance has attracted criticism in recent months from Democrats, an “outstanding president”.

“Truth and facts and logic and reason and basic decency are on the ballot”.

That three presidents descended on Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump narrowly won in 2016 but lost in 2020 to Mr Biden, signalled the importance of the battleground state in a congressional election that Mr Biden and Democrats have cast as a referendum on democracy.

Barack Obama told the crowed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that ‘democracy itself’ is on the ballot. Picture: AFP

Mr Trump’s remarks included grievances about the 2020 election, a FBI raid on his home, and “fake news” that have become routine at his rallies, but also included the strongest hint yet the 76-year-old will seek the Republican nomination, including a slide show of polls showing him ahead of Mr Biden in a hypothetical 2024 match-up. “I’m not going to say it right now... so, everybody, I promise you, in a very, very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy,” he teased to loud cheers, signalling an all but certain announcement of a third campaign for the US presidency that earlier reports had suggested would come on November 14.

“One of the reasons I don’t want to do that right now – cause I’d like to do it – but you know what, and I really mean this, I want to have the focus tonight be on Dr Oz and on Doug Mastriano,” he added, referring to his handpicked Republican candidates for the Senate and Pennsylvania governor.

In an unexpected move, Mr Trump branded Florida governor Ron DeSantis as “Ron De Sanctimonious”, a sign he sees the popular Republican as a key rival in a brewing fight for the nomination.

In an election campaign that will cost well over $US9bn according to Open Secrets, making it the most expensive mid-terms ever, Republicans have sought to blame Democrats for record high inflation, rising crime and an influx of illegal immigration on the southern border.

Mr Trump will head to Miami for another rally on Monday (AEDT), which Mr De­Santis, who has resisted declaring an intention to run for president, will not attend.

A Trump candidacy for president would be dogged by a series of unresolved legal and congressional inquiries into his tax affairs, his behaviour surrounding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots, and allegations he illegally stored top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.

Rally attendees Brendan Zetner and Zac Corlazzoli, both 18 and in their last year of local Norwin high school, blamed Democrats for high inflation, 8.2 per cent over the year to September, which polls indicate has become the No. 1 issue of concern for American voters. “We’re both young and almost out of high school – it’s going to be hard to start life with inflation, we can’t afford anything,” they told The Australian.

Kim Forbes, 59, a bartender from nearby Irwin attending her first Trump rally, said the economy, the border “and the pipelines” mattered greatly to her.

“I think there’s a red wave coming, Trump’s going to carry it to the end,” she said, adding that abortion rights were a distraction.

“I don’t care about it, it should be up to the states, they are just ­carrying on.”

More than 39 million Americans have already cast a vote ahead of Tuesday’s poll, according to US Election Project, more than at the same point in 2018.