WILMINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump will return to Clinton County on Friday for his second visit in two months.
His campaign announced early Thursday that Trump will appear at a 4 p.m. rally on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Wilmington Air Park in an event hosted by Airborne Maintenance & Engineering Services (AMES). Doors will open at 1 p.m.
For tickets, visit www.donaldjtrump.com.
Trump visited Clinton County on Thursday, Sept. 1 with a rally capped by a 23-minute speech by the candidate at the Roberts Centre near the Interstate 71 and U.S. 68 interchange. Thousands attended the event, including a large contingent from Highland County.
Clinton County Republican Party Chairman Tim Inwood told the News Journal Thursday that Trump returning to Clinton County is “a huge honor.” He added that he doesn’t think there is another rural community in Ohio that Trump has gone to twice during the campaign.
Inwood is pleased the rally will offer another chance to “showcase our town and county.” In addition, having the rally at the Wilmington Air Park is a positive, he said, referring to the air park coming back to life with Amazon and AMES.
He hopes other companies will be watching and see a great opportunity for themselves at the air park facilities.
Jessica Boyer, the eldest of the singing Boyer Sisters, will perform the national anthem at the rally. A local group known for doing Andrews Sisters’ World War II hits in three-part harmony, the Boyer Sisters’ website describes them as “three old-soul, fashion-loving, singing, creative, Christian sisters who desire to inspire.”
Local pastor Dan Mayo will give the invocation, as he did at Trump’s earlier visit to Clinton County.
Paul Cunningham, who is the spokesperson for AMES and its parent company ATSG, said the rally will be held in one of the air park hangars. The preparations will include “clearing the hangar and turning it over to security officials,” said Cunningham.
The company, he said, does not have an official stance in the upcoming election.
In 2004, there was a campaign rally for then-President George W. Bush in a Wilmington Air Park hangar.
“Of course, we will have a security checkpoint,” Cunningham said Thursday.
On Tuesday, it looked as if Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, might appear at a mid-afternoon Saturday campaign rally on the grounds of the Clinton County Courthouse in downtown Wilmington. On Thursday, Inwood said the local GOP was hoping Pence would make a local stop, but the candidate has a very tight schedule in the campaign’s closing days and there was a scheduling conflict on Saturday.
The Pence rally would have occurred about 3 p.m. Saturday, said Inwood, but there will be early voting going on at the Clinton County Board of Elections inside the courthouse from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. Partisan campaigning is not permitted within a certain distance of locations where voting is taking place at the time.
“That [a Pence campaign appearance] wasn’t going to be feasible,” Inwood said.
On Sept. 1 at the Roberts Centre, Trump began by speaking about economic policy, saying that some practices are going to stop, citing product dumping, unfair foreign subsidies and currency manipulation.
“The era of economic surrender, which is what we’ve done essentially, is over. A new era of American greatness is going to begin,” Trump told an enthusiastic audience.
The GOP nominee promised “a massive tax cut for working Americans,” and to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) — the latter pledge receiving a lot of cheering.
