FREELAND, MI - Enough people showed up to get a chance to see President Donald Trump speak in Saginaw County to form a temporary small town.
MBS Airport Manager James Cander said that they were expecting 5,000 people to visit for President Trump’s rally on Thursday, Sept. 10 but preliminary estimates from the Secret Service are starting to land in the area of 9,000 - 10,000.
Trump was scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. from the Avflight Saginaw hangar, an aviation company located at the airport. The facility itself was reported to have a capacity of 1,700. Last night’s event is the president’s first campaign rally in the state this year, coming while polls show the race tightening in Michigan. Trump would touch on manufacturing and auto jobs during his speech, telling supporters he would keep jobs in Michigan, given another four years.
To get ahead of the crowd, multiple Trump supporters decided to camp out overnight at MBS - a move that paid off as the MBS parking lots began filling up early Thursday afternoon.
“We were really overflowing, our old parking lot which had 1,400 spaces was rapidly filled. We were then parking people in the grass - which then also filled up and people were parking along the roadside," said Cander. "I eventually had to tell people to start parking at the new terminal parking lot, which was a mile away.”
By the time Air Force One landed with President Trump onboard at approximately 7 p.m., cars were still lined up around the roads surrounding the airport. Cander said that there were cars going out a couple of miles in three different directions from MBS.
With the larger-than-expected crowd, Cander said that the event went smoothly and without incident.
'Everyone seemed to be in good spirits and everyone seemed to be very polite, I didn’t see any incidents," he said. “The State police didn’t make me aware of any incidents that occurred and I didn’t hear anything on our radio, so overall it went as smoothly as it could with that amount of people.”
A protest dubbed the ‘Dump Trump Rally’ was held by Bay City-based Black Lives Matter group partnered with Refuse Fascism Detroit Area at the corner of Sarle and Garfield near MBS. The opposing gatherings remained generally peaceful, with minor verbal altercations between protesters and Trump supporters. MLive previously reported that protesters recited anti-Trump and anti-fascism chants while holding up signs to passing attendees.
Cleanup for the event was a breeze - Candor said that the cleanup efforts started immediately after the event.
“We’re almost back to normal operations,” he said.
Cander reported that one cargo aircraft left this morning with the presidential motorcade and a second was set to leave today taking the rest of the campaign equipment out.
Looking to the financial side of things, the main cost incurred by the airport by the event was the decision to have extra staff on duty. Cander did not have a numerical value to how much the extra staffing cost at this time.
“The cost limited to the airport really was my decision to have extra staff on hand just because of the number of people that were going to be here," he said. "That would have happened with any kind of VIP operation like this or event like this. Whether it was presidential or not, we need the extra staff on hand to cover all eventuality.”
More coverage from MLive:
President Donald Trump says he’s running for reelection to ‘keep jobs in Michigan’
Donald Trump celebrates Michigan rally turnout, slams Biden’s jobs record
Trump and Biden back-to-back visits show Michigan is still a 2020 battleground
Donald Trump offers ‘total and complete endorsement’ of John James in Michigan
Joe Biden meets with Detroit-area steelworkers during campaign swing through Michigan
Trump fans camp overnight to see president speak in Saginaw County
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Trump Michigan rally crowd nearly twice what was expected -- up to 10,000, airport manager says - MLive.com
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