Promises focus of Trump rally, worker demonstration outside

ROCHESTER — President Donald Trump focused on the promises that he's kept in his first two years in office as he spoke to a roaring crowd of Minnesota supporters Thursday evening at Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. 

Within the crowd were several manufacturing workers from St. Cloud and towns in Indiana and Ohio. They were there to press the president on his promise to keep manufacturing jobs in America. 

"They're all coming back," Trump said about businesses returning to Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. "Jobs are booming. Wages are rising."

Skip Frederick, an Electrolux employee of 39 years, will lose his job when Electrolux closes its St. Cloud facility in coming years. He came to Rochester from St. Cloud to ask the president to hold corporations accountable when they send jobs overseas.

"We want our message to get to the president," Frederick said. "We’re here to help American workers."

Trump's topics ranged from his accomplishments to the Nov. 6 election and back again. He cheered Minnesota Republicans running for high offices and jeered their Democratic opponents. 

State Sen. Karin Housley got a lot of air time at the rally and Trump pulled her on stage, even after her speech. 

The GOP nominee is running against U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, DFL, to fill the remainder of former Sen. Al Franken's term. Trump took jabs at Smith, saying no one's heard of her, and Franken, calling him "wacky."

Housley spoke at Trump's rally in Duluth in June as well. President Trump's attention to Minnesota — two visits in three months — means something, Housley said.

"It's very exciting for Minnesotans that we're no longer a flyover state," she said before the rally. "He wants to win it in 2020."

Housley currently trails Smith in the Real Clear Politics poll average by 6.7 points. But all those polls were taken before Thursday's rally.

Trump highlighted Minnesota candidates

Housley is optimistic for herself and the entire Republican ticket.

She noted that Trump lost Minnesota in 2016 by only about 40,000 votes, a margin that makes the state ripe to turn red from national elections like hers to races down ballot such as Jeff Johnson vs. Tim Walz for governor or the hotly contested fight between Rep. Keith Ellison and Doug Wardlow to become Minnesota’s next attorney general.

Housley and Johnson warmed up the crowd at the start of the rally Thursday afternoon, stirring up boos for their Democratic competitors.

"Tim Walz represents a third Mark Dayton term," Johnson said. "Minnesotans are so desperate for change. … Donna and I represent a fundamental change to a broken system."

His lieutenant governor pick Donna Bergstrom spoke as well.

Wardlow delivered a prayer before the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem.

In addition to his focus on Minnesota candidates, Trump talked about policies that impact Minnesotans. 

Trump's Minnesota mark

"We've really opened up Minnesota, you see what's happened with the mines," Trump said. He announced he'd cancel the Superior National Forest mining withdrawal in June.

"My administration has also reformed the refugee program to protect American communities like you have here in Minnesota," Trump said. "Where you're being treated very unfairly."

Banners in the Mayo Civic Center read "Promises Made" and "Promises Kept." Trump talked about how he's worn away at the Affordable Care Act. 

"We've mostly obliterated Obamacare," Trump said. "We're stuck with it, but it's obliterated.... We got rid of the most unpopular part. It's called the individual mandate."

Trump has also been working on trade reforms, starting first with trade wars with rising, back-and-forth tariffs. 

The U.S. announced this week a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

RELATED: New trade deal with Canada, Mexico borrows heavily from pact that Trump abandoned

"This is tremendous for Minnesota," he said.

China wants to make a deal too, he said. 

"For years China has been draining us. Taking our factories and building up their country with our money," Trump said. "No more."

Before the rally, Frederick brought up China, as Electrolux has moved some work there. 

His goal: "That the president use his influence to persuade these companies to be faithful to the country and the workers of this country."

Frederick came with a group called Good Jobs Nation, which lobbies presidents of both parties to answer to the working, rather than corporate, class, said Joseph Geevarghes, its executive director.

Two auto workers who'd been laid off in Lordstown, Ohio, came as well, eager to support the president if he can pull through on his promises. They want a Trump executive order to help keep jobs in America. 

"We've seen some positive things," said Scott Chittock of Ohio, who was laid off in June. "We've got to see him follow through."

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The Rochester Post-Bulletin contributed to this report.