PORT HURON — Republican President Donald Trump fired up an enthusiastic Republican crowd in Port Huron on Sunday, Oct. 25, seeking to disprove the projections of many political analysts that his party could be facing a midterm blue wave on Nov. 3.
“We have to win,” Trump told a crowd of about 3,000 people who filled the McMorran Place hockey arena in Port Huron, in what is believed to be the first visit to that Michigan city by a sitting U.S. president.
"You must get out and vote."
Trump spent much of his one hour and 45 minute speech attacking Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, claiming without evidence that El-Sayed is a “jihadist” and a “Muslim Brotherhood member” who wants to bring Sharia law to America.
Trump mixed those false attacks with more truthful criticisms, citing El-Sayed’s past campaign appearances with controversial far-left streamer Hasan Piker and El-Sayed’s refusal to say whether Iran or Israel represents a greater threat to the U.S.
Trump, hoarse-voiced amid a lengthy series of midterm rallies around the country, also spent part of his speech touting his actions to stop illegal entries across the U.S.-Mexico border and record highs the stock market has reached during his second presidency; voicing his displeasure with Norway for snubbing him for the Nobel Peace Prize; and marveling aloud at what he described as Ohio GOP Sen. John Husted’s muscular posterior.
He referenced the size of his crowd in Port Huron relative to the crowd drawn one day earlier in Detroit by former Democratic President Barack Obama, describing Obama as “my competitor" and suggesting the news media would not accurately compare the sizes of their respective audiences. (Obama's crowd inside Cass Technical High School Oct. 24 was estimated at about 4,000 compared to the estimated crowd of 3,000 inside Trump's event Oct. 25.)
Trump also defended the ongoing war with Iran, saying higher gas prices are “a small price to pay” for ensuring Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. “I thought gasoline would go up much more, to be honest” he said.
He repeated an earlier pledge to send $5,000 checks to all American adults, but only if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House and Senate.
And he told the border city crowd he expects the U.S. trade and tariff war with Canada to soon come to an end that will be favorable to the U.S.
“Canada has been ripping off the U.S. for years,” Trump said. “They’re willing to give us anything at this point.”
Michigan, typically a national battleground, has emerged in 2026 as a critical state in determining control of the U.S. Senate. Fighting for an open seat are: Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake Township, the Republican candidate; and Democrat El-Sayed, a former Wayne County and Detroit public health director.
Trump also wants to boost the chances of U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township, the Republican vying with Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to succeed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who is term-limited.
Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to vote in the midterms as if he is on the ballot, and he did so again Sunday in Port Huron. But his historically low approval ratings, amid high gas prices and continued inflation, along with an unpopular military conflict with Iraq, has caused some Republican candidates to try to distance themselves from him.
Both Rogers and James spoke at the Port Huron rally in advance of Trump's speech and returned to the stage during Trump's address. James, in particular, heaped praise on Trump.
Rogers, who spoke for about seven minutes before Trump took the stage, mostly focused on El-Sayed, describing him as a dangerous radical and a liar. He urged the Port Huron crowd to vote Republican in opposition to what he described as a Democratic effort to turn the U.S. socialist.
James, during his five-minute speech ahead of Trump's appearance, led with high gas prices and continued inflation, but attempted to link those issues and Michigan problems in education and infrastructure with Benson, who he said is part of a Democratic team that has been in power in Lansing since 2019.
"President Trump has only been in the White House for less than two years," James told the crowd.
Rogers, who had been generally supportive of Trump's tariff policies, aired a TV ad in early October calling for an immediate end to the tariff war with Canada. He also said in September that the war in Iraq needs to end quickly as a way of lowering gas prices. Asked during an Oct. 25 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," ahead of the Port Huron rally, whether he is a "MAGA Republican," Rogers declined to give a direct answer.
James, who benefited from a Trump endorsement to win a competitive Republican primary, has since said that he will put Michigan's interests ahead of the man in the White House.
Trump brought to the stage David Beamer, the father of Flint native Todd Beamer, who was immortalized by the words, “Let’s roll,” when he led a rebellion of passengers on 9-11 that caused one of the hijacked planes to crash in a Pennsylvania field instead of reaching what officials believe was an intended target in Washington.
“Mike Rogers is an American,” Beamer told the crowd. El-Sayed, who was born in the U.S., “has a birth certificate” but “is anti-American,” Beamer said.
The El-Sayed campaign responded quickly to Trump's attacks on him via a news release: “While they lie and resort to desperate, bad faith attacks, Abdul remains laser-focused on his plans to bring down costs and stand up to the chaos and corruption in Washington," the statement said.
Trump, after a series of events this month in usually solid GOP states such as Nebraska, Montana, Georgia, Alabama, Alaska and Ohio, chose a border city — Port Huron — impacted by his tariff and rhetorical war with Canada as his rallying place in the battleground state of Michigan.
Trump has imposed punitive tariffs and import bans on Canadian goods, referred to Prime Minister Mark Carney as "nasty" and "ungrateful," and has repeatedly floated the idea of annexing Canada or making it the 51st state.
Passenger crossings at the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron with Point Edward and Sarnia in the Canadian province of Ontario, dropped 21% in 2025 from a year earlier, according to data from the Bridge and Tunnel Operators Association.
Port Huron Mayor Anita Ashford told the Detroit Free Press Oct. 22 that she welcomes Trump's visit but believes strained relations between the U.S. and Canada are hurting Port Huron, where restaurants, bars, gas stations and shopping centers have historically been patronized by customers from the Sarnia area.
St. Clair County Commissioner Kerry Ange, whose district includes parts of Port Huron and the adjacent Fort Gratiot commercial strip, said in an Oct. 23 interview she thinks the talk about conflict with Canada is overblown, at least on a personal level.
She said she's grateful for Trump's visit, crediting his work securing the country's borders and working to bring back manufacturing. She cited the recent reopening of a Port Huron paper mill as Legacy Paper after two local paper mills closed in 2021 and 2022.
"I haven't seen any kind of acrimony between any visiting Canadian citizens and any citizen of St. Clair County, at all," said Ange, an attorney who is active in Republican politics.
"Nor have I seen too much of a decrease in terms of foot traffic of folks coming over from Canada," she said.
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley said in an Oct. 23 interview the bridge numbers speak for themselves and he also knows anecdotally of many Sarnia residents who don't visit Port Huron like they once did.
"They feel disrespected," Bradley said. "It's really strong. It's deep. I hear it every day: 'I'm not going over there.'"
Though Bradley said Trump damaged the ties between the U.S. and Canada, he said he doesn't think relations will heal quickly after Trump leaves office. Canadians have changed their travel habits and their spending habits, he said, and "it could be a generation" before the friendship is restored.
Shortly after Trump began speaking in Port Huron, a woman who was shouting opposition to Trump was escorted out of the arena.
Outside, there was a brief physical altercation between groups in downtown Port Huron, a few hours before Trump took the stage, as crowds gathered to celebrate and protest the rally.
A group of men in the back of a truck shouted anti-Muslim and immigrant statements, called for Trump to be president for four more years and that Jesus is king, among other things.
A person protesting the rally responded with pedophilia accusations against the president.
Police were on standby and broke up a fight among the two members in the crowd.
Kathleen McNally of Port Huron said she's an independent voter who witnessed the altercation.
“I'm ashamed they're part of the United States of America," McNally said of the men in the truck.
Trump's Port Huron visit came amid a flurry of Michigan events featuring national political figures as statewide early voting got under way on Saturday, Oct. 24. Close to one million Michigan residents had already cast ballots by the time early voting started, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections.
Former President Barack Obama rallied Democrats at an Oct. 24 event in Detroit where he skewered Trump as incompetent and corrupt and urged some 4,000 folks gathered at Cass Technical High School to vote for Democrats up and down the Nov. 3 ballot.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who sits as an Independent and is a national leader in the progressive movement, was to hold an evening event with El-Sayed in Grand Rapids on Oct. 25.
Republican Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to visit Howell on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Port Huron Times Herald Local Editor Liz Shepard and Times Herald staff writer Johnathan Hogan contributed to this report.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump makes Port Huron stop amid national midterm push
